Spring comes quickly: overnight
the plum tree blossoms,
the warm air fills with bird calls.
In the plowed dirt, someone has drawn a picture of the sun
with rays coming out all around
but because the background is dirt, the sun is black.
There is no signature.
Alas, very soon everything will disappear:
the bird calls, the delicate blossoms. In the end,
even the earth itself will follow the artist's name into oblivion.
Nevertheless, the artist intends
a mood of celebration.
How beautiful the blossoms are—emblems of the resilience of life.
The birds approach eagerly.
—Louise Glück [1]
[1] Louise Glück, Primavera, a poem from A Village Life, 2009. In 2020 she was awarded the Nobel prize for literature, cited for “her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”.
