Anti-War Pantoum
Everyone should write a spring poem. Louise Glück

For, in spite of everything, spring has come again:
Daffodils push up spears, as if marching to war.
Robins scratch the ground, kick up turf,
Who could imagine, grass this shade of green?

So many young men, marching off to war
Under a cloud of lies and patriotism—
Who could imagine, news that isn’t real,
Concocted out of someone’s rich imagination?

Under a dark cloud of invented facts,
Forsythia explodes in blossom.
Reporters at laptops, inventing news,
the furrowed earth, waits for rain.

The forsythia’s rockets explode, electric;
Our bodies spark when they undress.
Your brow furrows, and the rain
Comes down on the just and unjust, alike.

Our electric bodies, in the dark.
Robins fighting for their turf.
The just and the unjust wait for rain.
Despite all rumors, spring returns.