It is a wet spring.
We move about in cars or under our umbrellas.
So hard in the damp, to slow, then notice
everywhere the green consciousness —
how the younger shoots of the mulberry
unfold their leaves weeks before
thick upper limbs open their buds.
There’s a wisdom in letting the early light pass us
— in making room for a future.
I need to be shown again and again
how listening works. Because I hunger too.
In summer, in the boom years,
this tree stains the sidewalk
purple, covers it with jam,
pebbles it with seed,
feeds the deer and the squirrels,
lets berries go to beer,
sends birds sugared up or drunk
into glass nights, it is a source of energy
of colorful disruption, then it’s quiet
for a year or three.
The circles are bigger than we think
the mulberries less sweet.
The cycles are not as tight as a year; surely we can
give the young the advantage of the spring.
—
Charles Malone works with writers in the community around Kent, OH through the Wick Poetry Center. He is the author of three collections of poetry, After an Eclipse of Moths (Moonstone Arts), Questions About Circulation (Driftwood Press), and Working Hypothesis (Finishing Line Press). He edited the anthology A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park with Wolverine Farm Publishing and the new anthology Light Enters the Grove: Exploring Cuyahoga Valley National Park Through Poetry with Kent State University Press.
