Nights Of Frost Late In May

Location

for Alan Syliboy

Someone may have said
love can leave a shadow
and it may land on
or be cast down one side
of a sleeping neighbour’s roof.

If one is up and awake
it, the shadow, may appear white
even though sun isn’t there yet,
also at certain moments sparkles
like, not diamonds, but crushed diamonds
doing what may be described as dance
led by brief and longer breezes
wind leaves a new leaf to accompany
as flower-seeking cold begins an exit.

Over on a street the walk to work
allows someone to turn all this,
one of fewer mornings lately, after
the nights of frost late in May,
into a memory other Springs sent too,
one where hope may be about finally wearing other than a winter coat.

—

Chad Norman from Nova Scotia in 1992 won the Gwendolyn MacEwen Memorial Award For Poetry. His most recent book is Parental Forest (AOS Publishing). His poem, “The Shoulds”, was included in the Lunar Vagabond Collection as part of a time capsule scheduled for lift-off to the moon in 2025.

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