April is National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo), which means it’s time for me to write a poem a day! Ha ha, not really, not this year anyway. Here are a few from a while ago that I haven’t shared before and two that are more recent.

The featured image in this post is a pic I took the other day of Bleeding Heart blossoms in my garden.

Early April, 1984
The rivers are liquid again
but the puddles still freeze in the mud on the driveway.
In the morning, I stomp on the air bubbles frozen in them
while I wait for the bus to take me to school.
I make the rounds in the yard every day:
the crocuses planted by the foundation are up,
but the daffodils by the stone wall are not.
The lily of the valley bed
still has snow: it’s in the shadow of the house,
but each day it melts a little so that last year’s leaves,
bowed down under the weight of winter, are slowly revealed.
This is just the beginning.
But there will be an ending too:
after the rain overfills the brook and the pond,
the weight of the water will break the dam and my heart.

Quarters (A Pantoum)

Our wall clock slowed at fifteen to the hour
without notice, the time crept slowly back
But I was blissfully oblivious
While arriving later and later still

Without notice, the time crept slowly back
The mail still came on time, and the seasons,
While I arrived later and later still
I thought I’d go back home again someday

The mail still came on time, and the seasons,
Another equinox has come and gone.
I thought I’d go back home again someday
But it’s late to go back, a life already lived

Another equinox has come and gone.
Our wall clock slowed at fifteen to the hour
But it’s late to go back, my life already lived
And I was blissfully oblivious

Nightfall

It’s dark outside. You turned a light on earlier, but it’s somehow grown darker and now the light isn’t enough anymore. It’s almost time to go to bed and turn that light off anyway, so you put your work away and turn the light off. You should get up and go to bed, everyone else is in their room with lights off. Instead, you sit quietly listening to the sounds of the night.

Northern Summer

I want to go swimming in the brook
like we used to, getting lost in time 
until we couldn’t feel our fingers and toes,
only getting out when our lips turned blue. 
Wrapped shivering in towels 
we’d try to get warm on a rock in the sun,
talking and giggling and imagining.
The no-see-ums and the mosquitoes and the horseflies
finally chasing us home to find 
only an hour or two gone 
out of the longest short season: summer.