Lance Levens

Jubilate Deo

Grant that azaleas are a timid pause
while two thugs, Sweat and Gnat,
enforcers of the summer Mafioso laws,
decide if you can eat lunch on this bench
or that;

Grant the camellia’s sneezy, sniffling elf,
dousing its stamen’s gold
with clouds of pollen for your barely breathing self,
until your summer dreams give up and morph
to cold;

Grant that it’s now the wealthy retirees
permit the hoi polloi
to stroll through their palazzos for exclusive fees
and photograph their faux desires from Greece
or Troy;

Still, what we wryly designate as spring
(I know, it’s hard to tell)
lifts up our ground-bound eyes and stirs our tongues to sing
His petalled glory. Jubilate! He snapped
the spell!