The Useful Mud

A poem about early spring -- the mud, the robins, and the quiet surprise that the earth still wants to warm again.

The mud is back, the useful mud,
the kind that holds a boot a half-second longer
than you planned for, that gives the field
its particular smell of thaw and effort.

The robins came back yesterday
without announcement,
the way good things return --
not like a door flung open
but a window cracked an inch.

My neighbor is raking the same leaves
she raked last fall.
They traveled, is all. They circled
the yard all winter
and came back to her.

Everything is doing this: returning
to the last place it was warm.
The light stays an extra minute.
The ground softens where you press it.

I am standing here with my boots
in the useful mud,
remembering how it always surprises me --
not that winter ends
but that the earth
still wants to.