The lilacs were blooming when you took your bike,
the air fragrant as a funeral parlor when you rode
to the river, the birch and maples bursting,
the water like mercury in the May sunshine, and
did you see any of these things, I wonder 
afterwards—the first dragonflies swarming, 
the monarchs over the irises. You rode with
purpose, a terrible calming certainty. You moved
through beauty untouched and untouchable and
nothing was quiet that day. Spring is the noisiest
of seasons, as if all the sleeping
creatures awaken at once with a shout,
the nuthatches, the peepers, the fat robins
and phoebes, the wayward owl
calling in the sunshine, and you passed
through the ruckus, through the ferns unfurling
and the teeming fields. Only the river
was still sluggish from winter. You went
to its dark waters as if pulled by some thread,
unknowable to others, perhaps even to you,
but stronger than every other bond
tying you to the world.