Category Archives: poems & short jabs

The Rite of Spring | Painting by Yael Eylat-Tanaka

It Must Be Spring

The babies
of my
baby are
having babies.

My baby
sister’s baby
is having
a baby.

Even the
next-door
neighbors are
having a
baby &
they’re no
spring chickens.

The maple
tree in
the front
yard is
having babies,
thousands
of bright
green leaves.

The neighborhood
feral cat
had a
litter in
the garbage
can in
the alley.

Mentally deranged
orphans are
having babies
that may
grow up
to be
president or
short-order
cooks.

Illegal immigrants
are having
bilingual babies,
even test
tubes are
having babies.

What is
it with
this blind
impulse to
have babies,
to perpetuate
the suffering
even as
the water
is running
out &
asteroids are
streaking toward
the earth?

The best
I can
figure is
it must
be spring.