In early spring when
skeletal trees bud with new life,
I’ve seen the sun wrap around them,
and those buds, lit green and red,
fire the narrow roads.
The wild onions and
plush clover push up through
rusty and sandy soil just as
purple and gold finches depart
for the cool of the north
and leave me burning with
all this beauty. Even unchecked fields
of switchgrass and timothy will soon
break roughly under my feet
to blaze and sway, and
I am woozy with a tenderness
I haven’t seen or felt in a long while,
a goodness that will whistle through me,
and play me like an old piece
of rosewood.
—
Rebecca A. Spears, author of Brook the Divide (Unsolicited Press) and The Bright Obvious (Finishing Line Press), has her poems, essays, and reviews included in TriQuarterly, Calyx, Crazyhorse, Barrow Street, Verse Daily, Ars Medica, Field Notes, and other journals and anthologies. She has received awards from the Taos Writers Workshop, Vermont Studio Center, Porches Writing Retreat, and Dairy Hollow House. Brook the Divide was shortlisted for Best First Book of Poetry (Texas Institute of Letters).
