SPRING

You are a heron, passing overhead with a branch
in your beak as long as your legs,
ruling the blue sky, nesting like you’re in love.

You are the newest breeze that waves curtains
and snaps the sail of the season’s first boat
as it creaks its winter memory away.

Your waving blossoms on the cherry and shimmering
leaves on the maple greet us and hasten
our woolen layers back into attic wardrobes.

We meet you with hedge clippers and six-packs
of marigolds and stop to peek over the fence to see
what the neighbors’ tulips are doing today.

What a welcome friend you are, you kite-swooping devil,
with your warm wand of scent and color that
conjures backyard barbeques and sidewalk chats!

Melissa Resch (BostonArtist)

THE BIG EASY

I want easy afternoons, lazy love and white sleep…

                         slipping possible words in liquid sheets
                                   and the four corners of the death dance…

               and dry… dryness everywhere…

I want the walls to rain
                          and the floor too hot for my feet…

                 the laughter of smoke rings and pillows for breakfast…

        vertical smiles upon purple hours…
as the blindman of time winds the clock like a compass…

        I want a tongue that bites!
                      like a razor of the first shave…

                simplicity like the
                                     b
                                     i
                                     n
                                     d
                                     i
                                     n
                                     g of a book.

chances cloudy…
                          mean sky: knit brows & puffy cheeks…

I think I’ll wait
                          for sudden nights
                             and open sidewalks…

until…
                           the sun hustles the moon
                                                         .and people walk
                                              backwardS

Bernard Hamel

MY GRIEF

it wants a stormy day
it needs the wildness of a storm
the passions and the angers
every way to hit and strike
to lash and rail with floods or hail,
with winds to tear and claw at all
to crash and lash and shake the world
and shout my grief aloud, aloud
to yell and scream with angers loosed
the unfairness of this universe
that thoughtlessly uncaringly
takes a life that is so worthwhile
and loved beyond the simple word
how then, shall I go on alone when
my sister is taken away from me
the one who knew me and loved me still
my best friend, my sister dearly loved
now gone and I am alone, left bereft

Sherrylynne Mitchell (starbluedreamer)