violettesiren

[violettesiren]

The dead start stretching, wonder what’s next. All winter in quilts of white, colorless as their wrists and bones are becoming. They think they ought to be hungry, ought to feel around for photographs of the ones who followed them this dark bed and then turned their backs. The dead wonder if this is a bad dream where flashes of their old clothes are lugged off in boxes, their names in an address book crossed out, darkened over with ink like someone putting a stone on the coffin or weighting a body to throw overboard. When they feel light move into the grass they remember lilacs, white roots of trillium like upside down trees in a negative. It’s too late to change things. Some times they smell fresh flowers left on their grave and feel less lonely. It does not hurt to know somebody kneeling in wet grass is as lonely.

When Spring Melts the Ground by Lyn Lifshin

#lyn lifshin

[violettesiren]

Is it light on the trees that turns them to pale fire or is it spring, come without warning to this town on

stilts, set so precariously above the river? All night my heart is an owl perched on a high branch, its feathers

ablaze, its question answered by the face of the Angel of the Resurrection reflected in water as your hand prints itself on my bones, head bowed, mouth an O, burning, drinking the river in order to breathe. I spent days writing you a letter, but can't.

from The Angel of the Resurrection by Cynthia Zarin

#cynthia zarin

[violettesiren]

II. Tuesday’s Thaw, And Nectar

My loving is reckless—this small-clawed mammal seeking flight.

There is such quiver of forsythia, such tremble in the orchard. Everything

on the cusp of bloom and ripe—

fruit of his cheek, his speckled iris, new honeysuckle. Dumbstruck,

I turn sonic beacon, emit clumsy rings against stone, veins of leaves, skin.

All untetherable, I ache to gather in.

from Spring Pivot by Tayve Neese

#tayve neese

[violettesiren]

The great thing is not having a mind. Feelings: oh, I have those; they govern me. I have a lord in heaven called the sun, and open for him, showing him the fire of my own heart, fire like his presence. What could such glory be if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters, were you like me once, long ago, before you were human? Did you permit yourselves to open once, who would never open again? Because in truth I am speaking now the way you do. I speak because I am shattered.

The Red Poppy by Louise Glück

#louise glück

[violettesiren]

What is a wound but a flower dying on its descent to the earth, bag of scent filled with war, forest, torches, some trouble that befell now over and done. A wound is a fire sinking into itself. The tinder serves only so long, the log holds on and still it gives up, collapses into its bed of ashes and sand. I burned my hand cooking over a low flame, that flame now alive under my skin, the smell not unpleasant, the wound beautiful as a full-blown peony. Say goodbye to disaster. Shake hands with the unknown, what becomes of us once we’ve been torn apart and returned to our future, naked and small, sewn back together scar by scar.

Blossom by Dorianne Laux

#dorianne laux

[violettesiren]

Chaste sun who would not light your face pale as the fates who vanished

when we turned aside; recluse whom grace returned and by returning banished

all thought but: Love, late sleeper in the early hours, flesh of my bone, centaur: Excuse

my faults—tardiness, obtuse remit of my own heart, unruly haste

to keep my mouth on yours, to wipe the slate clean, to atone— what could I want but to wait

for that light to touch your face, chaste as Eros in the first wished- on rush of wings?

Aubade Against Grief by Cynthia Zarin

#cynthia zarin

[violettesiren]

It is spring on the coast— the sun behaving as it should burning into the window flashing against this poem. This poem celebrates a fly that softly rises above the desk. Not arrogant, it thinks where have I been? Where an I now? What year is this?

You May Ask by Ruth Stone

#ruth stone

[violettesiren]

Some love best long, leafy lanes, thick Overhead, and dewy grass bedecked with strawberries; Others, roses, like lovers climbing To the windows of sweet girls… But give me instead, O April, Sloping hills spotted with dandelions, And orchards laden With pale, blossoming beauty; Red maple buds against the wide sky, Tawny and grey leaflets throbbing into life, The sudden green of the willow, A patch of emerald wheat, Forsythias in a blaze of glory, And strong winds blowing white clouds Athwart great gaps of blue.

A Plea by Sally Bruce Kinsolving

#sally bruce kinsolving

[violettesiren]

Still cool the season, beauteous hawthorn blooming… I scarcely thought to greet You on the sands, or see your shadow looming Breeze-ruffled, at my feet.

But suddenly I sense my brow beset With heavenly scents thereof; Nor, in Verona's orchard, was Juliet Filled with more heartfelt love!

Trembling, I stop. Vanillin-limbed, that bough That I stoop to caress… Strength bedimmed, will my life be ended now In your languorousness?

Alas, we have no warning, no defense To guard ourselves from you! What arms are there against a redolence That breaks the heat in two?

And you-simple, calm innocence!…You, good And guiltless host to bees… Who would suspect a frail corolla could Ever wreak feats like these!

Can you enjoy your sport, the power you wield To pierce hearts captivated? Like Persian solder, why have I no shield, Tight-knit, of wicker plaited?

Deathless aroma, seizing, tethering us Till we swoon! Such your toll: No converse sweeter—nor more dangerous!— Than listening to your soul!

Praised be the gods, your flowers will soon be dying As the season departs. But Love, already with your deadly sighing, Has poison-tipped his darts!

The First Hawthorn by Anna de Noailles (Translated by Norman R. Shapiro)

#anna de noailles

[violettesiren]

The mysterious spring still lay under a spell, the transparent wind stalked over the mountains, and the deep lake kept being blue, — a temple of the Baptist not made by hands.

You were frightened by our first meeting, but I already prayed for the second, and now the evening is hot, the way it was then… How close the sun has come to the mountain.

You are not with me, but this is no separation: to me each instant is — triumphant news. I know there is such anguish in you that you cannot say a single word.

The mysterious spring still lay under a spell…by Anna Akhmatova (Translated by Jane Kenyon and Vera Sandomirsky)

#anna akhmatova

[violettesiren]

It was a disappointment, For I do not like magenta, And the garden was a fire of magenta Exploding like a bomb into the light-coloured peace of a Spring afternoon. Not wistaria dropping through Spanish moss, Not cherokees sprinkling the tops of trees with moon-shaped stars, Not the little pricked-out blooms of banksia roses, Could quench the flare of raw magenta. Rubens women shaking the fatness of their bodies In an opulent egotism Till the curves and colours of flesh Are nauseous to the sight, So this magenta. Hateful, Reeking with sensuality, Bestial, obscene — I remember you as something to be forgotten. But I cherish the smooth sweep of the colourless river, And the thin, clear song of the red-winged blackbirds In the marsh-grasses on the opposite bank.

Magnolia Gardens by Amy Lowell

#amy lowell

[violettesiren]

There is a black rose growing in the middle of my heart its scent makes me sleep longer…

it is a summer afternoon I am fourteen years old the jasmine is tormenting my soul its power weights heavily on my breast it competes with my young love and the movies which storm my brain spring fever in Beirut lasts from dusk to dawn.

from The Spring Flowers Own & The Manifestations of the Voyage by Etel Adnan

#etel adnan

[violettesiren]

LIII

My love, give me yesterday's rose, or tomorrow's. As for the rest of spring, let's save it for later!

from Absolute Solitude: Selected Poems by Dulce María Loynaz (Translated by James O’Conner)

#dulce maría loynaz

[violettesiren]

II How dared you write of roses? History Burned like a forest round you in the summer heat. A man’s brushing dust off time’s annals in the library But outside the window, back with the spring, Sappho sings through a nightingale Following her heart.

from Roses for Sappho by Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska

#Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska

[violettesiren]

only love could do it, give us moments so complete there is nothing behind us or before— only the timbre of that particular voice, the brush of skin on that particular skin, soul brushing against that other soul— but, sometimes, light can do it too, as it fills every fresh leaf on an April tree, brightens one side of every limb and twig, reveals how every one of them was pulled low by last year's burden and half the branches pruned and burnt, how the tip of every down-turned branch, every one, is upturned now, pink budding through the green— like the painted, upturned fingers of temple dancers.

I Thought by Moya Cannon

#moya cannon

[violettesiren]

5 I want to tell you, beloved, the poetry given us in the bread, the bed, the song, the audacious spring, the sweet weeping of the child awaking to the day.

It tastes of winter earth, of distance the name that covers us with its mantle. In my hours of shadow and of tears it is a lily that lights my desert.

For all these reasons I love you. The way you talk, your eyelids, your stature, the grace of your gentle movements

as you lay you body down like a river. When the sea closes me within dark night, it is your voice that captains my ship.

from Love Sonnets by Claribel Alegría

#claribel alegría

[violettesiren]

I slept in a room filled with white moths. In a wooden house in the lower Carpathians—Beskid Niski—each silvery night. I made my bed in the room's far corner, white moths settling like quiet petals on every surface as evening fell. They folded their wings and clung to the walls without a quiver as I undressed. I knew, as soon as I switched off the lamp, that the air would go pale with their fluttering. I knew, in my sleep, one might light on my arm, on my cheek, in my hair, without waking me. In this room, also, the seeds of wildflowers gleaned from the meadows were spread out to dry. What I learned about gentleness then. What I learned to be gently less wary of. I want not to forget those nights in the lower Carpathians, deep spring, sleeping alone: the white moths swirling as I dreamt; the meadows baring themselves to the moon.

Postcard to Myself from the Lower Carpathians, Spring by Cecilia Woloch

#cecilia woloch