Credit Suzanne Olivante for the image below which prompted the poem. Further inspiration from Robert Frost’s Nothing Gold Can Stay to which the first line alludes.

Cavern of Green

Frost’s first green surrounds
me like a cavern of gold
with stalagmites of wood
as I walk through this suburban
grove in rainy late April.

Just yesterday the deer
could see me and clatter
away through the winter
fallen limbs but today the trees
are claustrophobic with growth.

Branches drape my path,
heavy with new hung leaves.
If this were a cave,
bat ears would brush my hair
instead raindrops caress my scalp.

I would build a tree house
here and live in this day
for tomorrow the green will deepen
to lime and the sun will tarnish
this brief spring.