Defying the Times
The red leaf blooms dangling from delicate tree fingers,
they incite hope in a gray afternoon
where nothing but static hangs
in the unbalanced nature of this paled-out world.
The softened blossoms glimmer, they glean,
they pull the badness from everything and
make a teary eye shine with not a cloud of indifference,
but one of care and of belonging to something larger than oneself.
The hatred and outrage I have felt churning
in these already-damaged guts lifts for a moment.
The breeze leans against me
like a limber friend looking for support in a windy predicament,
and I lean into her, lips outstretched,
smiling at the clueless happenstance of being here,
at this place in time when so much is at stake.
Yet here we are, this tree and I, defying the times with our smiles.
They Can Smell the Rain Coming
You’ll recognize it’s Spring
by all the signals nature gives.
Miss Forsythia
is growing
out her hair again.
The apple blossoms
whisper to each other
across the way,
they can smell the rain coming.
Some say
it’s like a nickel in the nose,
a metallic-scented rendering of god,
if god were a rain-soaked woman.
The pine trees
sing their sappy
out-of-tune love songs
as they wait for
the cool morning breezes
to hurry them along
into their afternoon sways,
their evening sheddings.
The robin
calls forth a lilting tune
of unrequited love
for unreachable worms.
Worms don’t have ears, sadly.
Maybe next Spring.
Evolution is
a sometimes fickle,
sometimes giving being.
April Ridge lurks in the rural hilltops, akin to Mothman’s tomboy cousin, listening for hints of poetry on the wind. She enjoys horror films, the sordid affairs of 1920s circus performers, long walks in pitch black tunnels and the occasional waffle cone from Jiffy Treet. She hopes to highlight the needs of poems in danger, on the run, escaping from the need to fit into one form or another, on their way to the freedom of epiphany. Her work has appeared sporadically in deep space, circling black holes until the dinner bell of eternal fame rings in its echoing chambers.
