There are buds in my garden, peeking out from under the blackened blankets of moldy leaves. The ground is completely sodden, spongey with rain, and the grass is still last year’s yellow leftovers. Puddles reflect the sound of running water; through the ditches, into the drains, it teases the ear. There is a lightness to the days now, beyond the cloud cover and shining through it. Every year, this miracle. Every year, this return to green and light and renewal. I’m watching the trees with a sharpened eye, hoping to see spring burst, from brown to green. When I went looking for poetry in my files and my notebooks and my envelopes and folders of treasure, I kept being brought up short by words about spring. Here are 2 of my favorites. The first is by a woman who was in a college writing class with me. I have several of her poems written down but no idea what’s happened to her, and she doesn’t come up on Google with her maiden name. The second one is by my other favorite May (an appropriate name for Spring!).<\/p>\n
Happy Birthday
\nby Cathy Kirchgessner<\/b><\/p>\n
I stand barefoot in the rain
\nlicking chocolate cake batter
\nfrom a rubber spatula
\nI didn’t take time to set down.
\nI ran from the kitchen
\nfast and far into the rain,
\nfrom dryness and thirst
\nto wet, to here!
\nI am here!
\nWith spiders and cherries
\nand thunder and sparrows.
\nI flip flop on flooded grass,
\nslide slick as grease
\nin squirmy, wormy soup.
\nI sing to this world,
\npet her, let her know
\nthere is happy.
\nI will bake her a cake,
\nwhip it at her rocks,
\nthrow it to her sky,
\nspread it gently
\non her velvet, violet petals.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Metamorphosis
\nby May Sarton<\/b><\/p>\n
Always it happens when we are not there\u2014
\nThe tree leaps up alive into the air,
\nSmall open parasols of Chinese green
\nWave on each twig. But who has ever seen
\nThe latch sprung, the bud as it burst?
\nSpring always manages to get there first.<\/p>\n
Lovers of wind, who will have been aware
\nOf a faint stirring in the empty air,
\nLook up one day through a dissolving screen
\nTo find no star, but this multiplied green,
\nShadow on shadow, singing sweet and clear.
\nListen, lovers of wind, the leaves are here!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are buds in my garden, peeking out from under the blackened blankets of moldy leaves. The ground is completely sodden, spongey with rain, and the grass is still last year’s yellow leftovers. Puddles reflect the sound of running water; through the ditches, into the drains, it teases the ear. There is a lightness to the days now, beyond the cloud cover and shining through it. Every year, this miracle. Every year, this return to green and light and renewal. I’m watching the trees with a sharpened eye, hoping to see spring burst, from brown to green. When I went...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-1141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-poetrythursday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5302,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141\/revisions\/5302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}