In praise of Leap Day

We should leap every day.
Once in four years is a travesty,
A sin of ingratitude
Against the
Crazy liberation of
Bottled-up
Being.

Today of all days --
Today is the day to shout:
We are!
We are!

We should leap every day --

But we can't, of course:
There is too much loss
To leap over,
Too much darkness
To dispel.

Gravity will prevail.

This day, though, should remind us:
Time spirals out
From within all,
Unfurls

A being that is
Becoming,
A becoming that is a
Departure.

Leap Day
Stands outside
What it stands within.

It stands within its
Proper, square,
Joined to the others
But hanging over
The Void.

It exists
Here
But points
Beyond,
Proclaiming
That the leap into life
(Like the eventual
Leap of leaving)

Is a gift
Which even
The angels
Covet.

--Mr. Gobley

In Praise of February

On this gray morning,
Every branch has a droplet
Suspended at its tip,
Like a bud
Or a pearl of milk

Nothing moves

All is suspended
In the equipoise
Of a mild
Midwestern
Winter

The barking of dogs
The sighing of traffic on
The expressway
The whir of an
Appliance

Spiral out into the
Waiting air --
Signals
To the waiting Spring,

Semaphore to the
Seeping aquifers
And sleeping ants,

Drumbeat of the deliverance
Of the Sun
As it ascends once more
To its black
Throne

We who hope
And wait

Hear the crocuses stirring

Smile as life
Comes
And the drops swell
And fall

On the waiting
Earth

--Mr. Gobley