Minor Arcana

Commuter tips her head to drop
the wide hood of her raincoat.

This morning, after the storm,
each shrub's a sacrament.

Rows of emerald goblets brim
with silver offerings.

The bare-browed queen of cups
pauses by the laurel, trails

a loving fingertip
through bowls of cool, wet light.




photograph by Edward Weston

On the Equinox

Now Old Man Winter shakes his purse
And frowns at his barren accounts;
His manor crumbles with each curse:
How did he squander such amounts?

He thunders through the empty hall,
Opens the vault of hail and gust--
His savings--but he's spent them all;
Where once was sleet, now all is dust.

Now Spring steps cautious down the street
And shines each penny like it's gold;
She smiles at the sun's new heat
Because she remembers the cold.

Then Love creeps in, a child of Spring:
All pink, and pale, and tiptoeing.




photograph by Mikey Baratta

In Spring

Everyone’s cold. To-do list
stretches miles and I won’t
get out of bed. Email from a sane man
screams I AM AFRAID
YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN ME
and I’m dropping small tears
on your shirt but you’re
not in it. Kids outside
are doing what they’re supposed to,
screaming, pushing, falling down,
and I see your frown in a photo
and it’s frostbite on my bones.

You’re gone. Can’t feel
my feet, but lavender fingers ache.
Grief counselors preach acceptance:
You aren’t coming back.

I say, take me, wakening earth,
take what’s left of this frozen stone.
Close that wound up. Let spring begin.


photograph by Allie Taylor

Anna in the Brambles

She had hidden the dark, oily seeds,
buried them deep in the dry side of the garden.
Winter saw rock-hard ground, silence between rooms,
white skies. And then spring, and with the rise
of string beans, peppers, foxglove,
the garden gave an army
of thorny, hungry spines.
She was uprooting them, swearing, bleeding,
when I found her in the dirt.




photograph by wordsforsnow

Interlude: Other People's Poetry

The May Queen

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year;
Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the
May.

There’s many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as
mine;
There’s Margaret and Mary, there’s Kate and Caroline;
But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say,
So I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the
May.

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break;
But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the
May.

As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see
But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree?
He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday,
But I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the
May.

He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white,
And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light.
They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the
May.

They say he’s dying all for love, but that can never be;
They say his heart is breaking, mother–what is that to me?
There’s many a bolder lad ’ill woo me any summer day,
And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the
May.

Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green,
And you’ll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen;
For the shepherd lads on every side ’ill come from far away,
And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the
May.

The honeysuckle round the porch has woven its wavy bowers,
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers;
And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and
hollows gray,
And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the
May.

The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass,
And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass;
There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day,
And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the
May.

All the valley, mother, ’ill be fresh and green and still,
And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,
And the rivulet in the flowery dale ’ill merrily glance and play,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the
May.

So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear,
To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year;
To-morrow ’ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the
May.



-Alfred, Lord Tennyson







photograph by Bethanie De Veau

The First Night of Open Windows: A Census

One lazy-looking spider, possibly
the same one I tossed out the back door
this morning. Two ladybugs.
The fist-sized moth with wings
like the Constitution. He was confounded
when I shut off the kitchen lights.
The refrigerator
would like to be counted.

And then there is me, outlined in light
at the mouth of the closet, hand
to my face in the search
for the right nightshirt
for a night such as this.

Somewhere outside,
a frog calls his children.




photograph by Joanna Blusiewicz

After a Long Winter

There are trees near your house
that you did not know were cherry
until the blossoms came.









photograph by Toshihiro Oshima

The First Beautiful Day

Spring slides over the last patch of gray;
somewhere a river is thawing.
My tongue is heavy with flowers.




photograph by Rachel K

The Waltz of the Houseguest

You cannot know what the room
was like that night. You were not in it.
The night air mothered new rain at the window.
Drops played soft on the pillow. Your pillow.

Nine months later I am driving,
two hundred miles away. Still your music
fills my ears. Today's air swells
with a silver belly of rain, and each
kissing breeze draws from me
fresh tears. This such beautiful air.
This my skin so damp, so blessed. This
no small miracle.

The road runs along a muddy creek bed.
The sad guitar tapers. A new song's beginning:
a choir of hidden frogs. I am water.
I am joy. I am lost.



photograph by flickr user riot jane

Spring

The carrots are born and the rabbits
are dying. The root came up--
crayon orange, firm with promise--from
the dry rows just off the porch.

Over the fence the neighbor's pool
has claimed another rabbit. Face first
like a fish. Still as a lily pad.
Her nose does not know
the riches are ready.






photograph by Emily McPhie

Tour Jeté

She was stunned at the revolution
of every year. Each time a season turned
she squinted, surprised. Did anyone believe
autumn would come again? And, too,
disorientation—she was alive this time,
this year, reason be damned.

Equinox and warmer light left
her eyebrows floating, dark
in the lake of her forehead.
(The leaves are actually changing,
the April air does feel like that.)




an old poem, revised for 2009
photograph by Alison Scarpulla

Why I Don't Send You Dirges (On Reading McDonald's "Anniversary")

How strange, these days, that love--
improbable, impossible, unforgivable--
not grief, is the birthing tide
I've come to ride to quiet morning shores.
Each night erases the last.




photograph by flickr user el neko
original poem here

Shouted from the Office Window

I see the snow
melting, Spring, don't pretend
you're not out there.





photograph by flickr user Todd (cedarkayak)