Spring, like poetry, makes us humble, writes Annie Finch.

And giddy. I'm drunk on blue sky and sunshine. In this string of clear days, I revel in the loopy leaps of e.e. cummings. I'm at one with bees buzzing the blossoms, and the squirrels fatly lapping the trees. Spring unspools, turns me astonished and grateful.

We made it? Yes, we made it through winter's gloom!

Is it any wonder National Poetry Month is in April, smack-dab in the flush of spring and all its poetic possibilities?

O Sweet Spontaneous

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

               fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and

poked
thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

         beauty                  how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
         (but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

              thou answerest

them only with

                                spring)

— e.e. cummings

Read: Spring Ahead, an essay by Annie Finch, at the Poetry Foundation.

It's Thankful Thursday. Please join me in a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more. What are you thankful for today?