They are filling the Sunday market here, confirming spring. I decided to look for a poem about tulips for today, and came up with this. I especially like the tulip verse:
The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog
To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God’s love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow
To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by
your up-ended skirt
To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other
dogs can smell it
Alicia Ostriker
from The Book of Seventy