Blooms at Flavel House Museum

“Spring CAN Be Far Behind”

By Florence Sage

The kids next door have been let out to play.

Their summer shouts and squeals are back,

breaching the windows I opened today

inviting soft warm air into the house.

It’s 70 in town, not a whisper of rain, the day

after the Ides of March and before Saint Pat’s,

after many long stretches of heavy wet skies

dappled with a day or two of good sun, this is great!

I try on last year’s shorts.

The lawn will need to be cut.

Someone hangs laundry on a line.

Daylight will stretch across the sky

past seven with equinox two days away

and workers get home before dark.

My pent-up dog and I will go for a walk

in a meadow by a forest we favor

and he’ll settle his belly into puddles

deep from all that steady rain and bathe

and wiggle and sigh and roll ecstatic

in warm wild-growing grass and juicy shoots

and this time my socks might stay dry.

Let the pollinators out there be urged by the sun

to emerge from the puffer-coat midnights of March

and nectar at noon on the glorious white blooms

all over the pear tree in my yard

and trail pollen around the waiting branches

so maybe this fall some fruit for a change.

Get with it, butterflies and bees and your kind

before the temperature plunges again

and some north coast gale downs all the petals

emerged in good faith once more in the sun, hopeful

like us, as we dig out our garden tools, trusting,

on a day like this in the middle of March,

fools that we are,

that spring can’t be far behind,

forgetting what April can do.

“Seeds”

By Beverley Wallace

I am a seed

if you plant me

I will grow —

to know the sun the wind the rain

the devastation of an insect

feeding upon my body

I will survive

to become a flower

of beauty and fragrance

A seed is a prayer in disguise

waiting to be planted.

“The Immigrant’s Dilemma”

By Irene Martin

What do I gain from displacement?

What do I give up? What do I retain?

What anchors me in my DNA

That I cannot let go?

Enmeshed in my genes are:

Family sayings; dreams of school friends;

The smell of maple trees budding in spring;

The barn loft in summer, fragrant with hay;

Chickens crooning in the henhouse;

Eastern woodlands rich in fall colors; white winters.

Tangled in those chromosomes are

Notions of kindness, of civility, long-term friendships that yet endure,

And an insistent sense of right and wrong

Not always congruent with present reality.

Immigration tests the limits of DNA.

How do we change into someone else, and remain ourselves?

“As Days Grow Longer”

By Dayle Olson

Look how dependably

one day follows another,

the moon pulling the ocean into the river

then releasing it,

like a parent interrupting

the upward arc of a child mid-swing.

Fat little fish find their way

down hidden creeks,

leaving familiar beds

to swim in the silvery euphoria

of migration.

Along the greening banks

soft air stirs the bees,

whispering ideas of nectar and honey.

Osprey and sea lion

journey back to their coastal home.

The river turns another page

in the book authored when poetry

was spoken

by trees as tall as mountains.

“Saddle Mountain Winks”

By Katy Paz

I sit within the folds of an overturned tree.

Drink up the roots and sing me a lullaby as I cast my soul to the sea.

Is there anything that the promise of spring cannot cure?

As I sit, I realize that I have unwrapped the gift of a still mind.

My heart beats in time with the sun.

The nearby snow-topped peak of Saddle Mountain reminds me that winter is not quite sleeping yet. It winks at me as if to say, “don’t tuck your winter coat away just yet silly.”

A skinny dip or a chunky dunk may be a tad optimistic for this season.

I laugh like a child.

Bliss.

As I dip my fingertips into a waterfall against the sand, I am reminded that I am alive.

In that moment I am healed.

A buffet of colors dances merrily across my vision, a waltz of splendor and magic.

The sand twinkles as if glitter has been strewn across a thousand elementary classrooms.

A canvas laid out by the greatest artist in all of time and history.

Nature.

A lone crab’s leg basks lazily in the sun and I’m reminded to not take life too seriously.

I smile.

“Oregon Spring”

By Wendy Wolf

After the fierce winter storms,

after the winds and rain,

and the ocean churning cold and grey,

signs of spring softly sing all around us.

Delicate green shoots,

the promise of flowers,

splashes of yellow and fiery pink,

tiny blue violets tucked between rocks …

vibrant color in the mist

like flicks of paint from an artist’s brush.

The elk, with their dense chestnut coats,

call and gambol.

Soon, spotted calves will arrive,

their mothers already pregnant,

ready to give birth

in this season where the young

are more likely to thrive.

The herds are nomadic.

They want what we all want —

Food, safety. Companionship.

Freedom.

They live peaceably alongside us;

their existence, a gift,

like the sea lions, the whales,

the eagles and hawks.

It is never too late to embrace this

kinship. Start now, this minute.

Inspiration is nurtured by compassion

and awe.

I think perhaps the beginning of the new year

should not be in January; it should be in

the spring. Where fresh starts

and possibilities are all around us.