I knew a spring was coming by the way

I knew a spring was coming by the way
The green began appearing on the sides
Of the bayou by my mother's house.
Those lousy, foreign, alien love-bugs

Were sticking to the bumpers of the cars;
The gulf had bubbled up a dancing line
Of thunderstorms to cool the afternoon
And I reflected on bounds and limits.

A painting of a horizon I saw
That Degas did was just an impression
Of what he saw while riding through the fields.

I couldn't tell the sky from the earth,
The day from the night, nor the end
Of any year from its beginning.