April is National Poetry Month; how apropos it’s spring observance. Each new leaf expanding elicits a poem in itself, as with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. And spring flowers are second only to love in their poetic inspiration. “The earth laughs in flowers”, wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. My garden is positively giggling after the long, somber winter and what pushes up from the cool soil evokes these words:
fresh
tender
unblemished
miraculous
vigorous
ephemeral
and of course, verdant.
It’s quite natural that Marianne Moore likened poetry to “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” Frogs sprung for cover and blossoms bobbed in the wind as I captured photos for this post. It was Sunday that a weather front delivered the last of many April showers. As this week’s sunshine attests: there will be magical verses inspired by the resulting May flowers, if only in my head.
© Colleen Miko, 2014