Spring is always a season of hope, when life emerges in a flourish of color and sound. It's a timeless kind of optimism, a familiar procession year in and year out, that begins with green shoots and explodes in the pinks of cherry blossoms and magnolia blooms. Inevitably, we find ways, as spring emerges, to leave behind winter’s dark days. Especially this winter, after a never-ending 2020. Now that many are getting vaccinated, there is another reason for hope and another kind of waking in the world.
Try Putting It Back Together
One sign of new life is the return of art shows to the East End. My painting Try Putting It Back Together will appear in "Vito Sisti's Women's Show Revisited" at Ashawagh Hall May 7-9 (with an opening reception on Saturday, May 8th from 5-7 pm) organized by Karyn Mannix Contemporary.
To celebrate the season, National Poetry Month, and new beginnings, here is a poem of spring, published in a slightly different form in South Florida Journal.
EAST END SPRING 2020
A cloud of rolling fog half covers Gardiner’s Island.
Salt spring air gives a tangy shiver,
tart like the sweet melt of dark chocolate.
Along the beachfront
Leyland cypress trees are silent.
The morning world
is sleeping. Our island’s April winds
have vanished. Emerald ferns
unfurl dime-size spiral heads.
Burlap-wrapped bushes, cocooned creatures,
will soon be free. The scrubby shoreline
forest chatters. Chicadees sing dee, chickadee,
new season! Woodpeckers ratchet repetitive
cacophonies. The chorus of mating
spring peepers hidden in wetlands,
swelling sound. Though the virus shadows
like a hungry ghost, nature’s noise
is an invitation. Small wonders catch us
by surprise. These broken lives, nights
wishing for escape, have brought us
here, fears unmasked.
A cardinal flashes
across the road. We stop to see him land.
An influencer indeed,
he draws us in, chooses a cherry branch
thick with blooms. Perfect,
we think. Red bird, pink tree.
Click-through to read this poem and my poem “Passing at a Distance.” Listen to recordings of me reading them and check out the full issue of South Florida Poetry Journal.