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SPIRIT GARDEN
by Viola Weinberg There, beyond the 8' cannas blazing red, with firecracker throats There, aside the path of persistence that turns happy each year on the eve of her birthday, the lilies and their irrepressible joy the purple, the throaty yellows streaking each trumpet, the bees moving through the hefty blooms to the delicate golden bells of the last two who greet the poet late in the spring, in pale might There, in the air, waving lazily the long-legged sunflowers with their happy faces, turning toward the light, as they do each day Below, the ambitious snow peas and scarlet runners climbing ladders and a tepee of willow in a sea of tomatoes with names like Golden Hillbilly, Black Crim Mortgage Lifter and Yellow Glockenspiel that nod to the perking chilis ablaze in two boxes, sweet and hot O, the song of it, the symphony and happy chaos of growing things The healing scent of green leaves unfurling like resolute flags of no country The guardian Echinacea fierce and pink stands on the prow of the garden's ship guides the humble weed picker through the rags of the natural, teaches patience and makes a good tea for the sick On the wall of the old tin shed, sprawl night flowers from the island that bloom as they please in the full sail of the moon |
REMEMBRANCE by Brent Wiggans |
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GUINEVERE IN THE ROSE GARDEN
by Ann Wehrman pale yellow-white sky edged with robin's egg blue the air still holds winter's stubborn punch ice crystals and morning hoar frost yet one senses a subtle invasion of fertility smells damp, rich loam infant grass engendered by winter rain triangle of soil dusted with olive-green moss holds pedigreed rose bushes lined up like crosses at Arlington bearing neither taut, fresh buds nor blowsy, browning blossoms dropping sated petals naked, thorny bushes tightly, sensibly pruned shiver in January's cold sun with its promise of spring |
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LET SOW, STICK
by John Zedolik Perhaps if I let these blossoms, dry and crinkling as onion-skin paper accrue to my busy person I will sprout leaves like those that used to accompany these wrappers, so I will not flick them off my jeans in order to preserve the uniform appearance of the weave's blank blue—too much effort, too much will—to remove the effects of live spring, which will grow up, spread around me, and leave me, if constantly flicking the tree's confetti from my limbs, stuck in plains clothes, an island remnant of winter, clinging only to the discrete, neat integument, good for warmth and work-a-day appearance, want, and need but not for this hemisphere's present turn and its flying and sticking seed |
HAPPY PINK by Jennifer Lothrigel |
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SONG AT BOTH EDGES
by Millard C. Davis At the edge of the woods the Chuck-will's-widow drops song Like one who'd had too much before and had to unroll it all Like a gift to others the song he felt further inside than breast And looked for us to try to walk in close Not to miss a note or the feeling he knew. It's the kind of song you go to listen to, Only holding hands for being invited to come out And join in song with its own musical notes That you can't find in writing much less by a band, Though an orchestra comes close and an organ even better. I try to catch as much as I can before sunrise comes And night goes to hide those who would be sung with. That's the value of dreams, darkness itself, And are taken away at the call of daylight. I feel as one with those both coming and going And make an envelope to carry them away. That's the value of dreams, so I never let them go. |
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