I'm a Fool for Spring

I walked along the Newburyport waterfront this morning. The feel of spring is in the air. Snow has melted and you can smell the earth again. The sun is high in the morning. The river was high this morning too. Recent rains and upriver snowmelt has flooded the banks and swept last year’s debris away. I watched the current streaming branches and flotsam and jetsam towards the ocean. A bottle floated by. Leaving me this:

Stranded on the Shore

After the first spring rain, debris
is lifted off the recently
thawed riverbanks and slips downstream,
threading its course within the seam
of current passing out to sea.
I watch the waste of last year flash
before the fishing pier, the trash
from summer outings and the limbs
and branches stripped by storms, felled whims
from autumn gone without a splash.
A bottle bobs and circles by,
still capped. I can identify
nothing of note ensnared inside.
Still I trust it makes the tide.

Not exactly a sonnet, still it’s more formal a poem than I’ve written in a while. There’s a consistent although slightly unconventional rhyme scheme throughout (AABBACCDDCEEFF), and the feel, to me, is quite formal. Maybe too. But I wanted to.