Then One Day, Spring

As are many of my poems, this one is rooted in my childhood.

There are so many memories from that time, still warm and shiny from much handling. Of course, they were not all happy memories ... there were hard times abroad in the land ... but the good ones have prevailed.

This collection of memories goes back before the days of central heating. No fear of the pipes freezing then ... there weren't any. Flush toilets were a part of those distant cities we had heard about.

Oh, but when the world began showing signs of thawing ... then we felt like celebrating. We had survived another winter. Spring meant the trees would soon be budding out, Easter flowers would start reaching their slender fingers toward the sun, birds would be singing.

What a great world we lived in!

The poem:

THEN ONE DAY, SPRING

After the long, gray parade

of frozen winter months,

there eventually came a day

unlike others in our valley,

when the sun seemed brighter,

warmer, the breeze softer,

clearer, carrying birdsong

in floating crystal notes,

snow beginning to inch back

from the steaming roof edge

of a nearly-empty coal shed,

sending tear-like trickles

of water drip-drip-dripping

onto earth where daffodils

soon would be punching

slender fingers through,

reaching for the warmth.

Then high along the ridge,

at the bluffs where a stream

would struggle with thirst

in July, there issued

the robust song of water

newly freed from the cold,

tumbling head-over-heels

to reach the rocks below

and come racing toward us

with the great good news.

© 1999

(received an honorable mention in Poets' Study Club competition, subsequently published in Capper's, and now part of a manuscript entitled Wood Smoke, which is to be published later this year by Finishing Line Press)

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Today's word: jubilation

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:

Oh, Featheredpines ... what I'd give for temperatures any where near the seventies right now ... here in Ohio the weather tends to seesaw a lot. Right now we're shivering again. A checkout clerk this morning shared the fact that she'd left a window open last night ... seemed great then ... woke up freezing this morning. And 300 days of sunshine? Whoa! Please send some this way, if you can.