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"In Slovenia’s Soča Valley, the traditional Pust festival marks the end of winter. Locals wear masks and costumes in a century-old ritual that celebrates the coming of spring.

1

In March the earth remembers its own name.

Everywhere the plates of snow are cracking.

The rivers begin to sing. In the sky

the winter stars are sliding away; new stars

appear as, later, small blades of grain

will shine in the dark fields.

And the name of every place

is joyful.

2

The season of curiosity is everlasting

and the hour for adventure never ends,

but tonight

even the men who walked upon the moon

are lying content

by open windows

where the winds are sweeping over the fields,

over water,

over the naked earth,

into villages, and lonely country houses, and the vast cities

3

because it is spring;

because once more the moon and the earth are eloping -

a love match that will bring forth fantastic children

who will learn to stand, walk, and finally run

over the surface of earth;

who will believe, for years,

that everything is possible.

4

Born of clay,

how shall a man be holy;

born of water,

how shall a man visit the stars;

born of the seasons,

how shall a man live forever?

5

Soon

the child of the red-spotted newt, the eft,

will enter his life from the tiny egg.

On his delicate legs

he will run through the valleys of moss

down to the leaf mold by the streams,

where lately white snow lay upon the earth

like a deep and lustrous blanket

of moon-fire,

6

and probably

everything

is possible.

- Mary Oliver

Louis Wain