CONFESSION IN APRIL

Dear Lord, I have sinned against thee.
For I do not love all flowers equally.

For daffodils have come up in my yard instead of tulips.
For I hate their stupid yellow faces

And say they are no better than weeds.
For I have turned spiteful,

And admire the cats who do bite through their necks.
For I finger my calluses from the planting,

And resent them still further.
For I blame them for their nature.

Yet once planted, they could but be what they are.
For I resent the earth that they eat in their growing.

For even the crow who devoured a nestling before me
Is more approved in my sight.

For I will not accept them, and say, "I cannot."
But if I had courage

I would root them up by their heads
And leave them for carcass.

For my anger is implacable against them.
Yet they grow in clusters like families,

And still are destestable.
For I say, "How could this happen?"

As if counted to measure.
For I tell myself I loved the barrenness better.

For I act as if this were the last year,
And encourage the winds against them

And hate the rains that suckle them up.
For I walk neither to the right nor left.

But would trample upon them.
For in the morning I wish it were evening

So they would be gone from my sight.
For I cannot forgive.

For all day my eye is pressed against the glass
And my eye is evil.

For I eye my neighbor's house and will it to burst
And drown them entirely. For they seem so proud.

For they have spent the winter feeling worms
At their white skins, and have not complained to the air.

They do not cry out, "We are cold,"
Though the winds blow against rawly,

Or against heat when the sun bakes down upon them.
For they are not really ugly.

For much can be said to assert them,
Yet they anger me against all sanity.

For I suspect their connivance against my favorite tulips.
For their golds are gall to me.

For in truth, my will is not done.