Letter from the Country
The winter lies between us, and I find
With you away
That April can be hard to bear,
When budding leaves like small green gossips
Nose into my gloom,
When mocking blooms uncurl
And, flinging off their coats
Like careless girls, go bare in beauty
And the snow-brushed air.
My loneliness needs ice,
Frost for the landscape,
Chill for the burning thaw;
How spring can chafe the heart
And dazzle winter-shaded eyes, alone
I’m learning well.
Return, my love, restore
My April innocence.
I tell you what I never knew
Before: my seasons come and go
With you.
The winter lies between us, and I find
With you away
That April can be hard to bear,
When budding leaves like small green gossips
Nose into my gloom,
When mocking blooms uncurl
And, flinging off their coats
Like careless girls, go bare in beauty
And the snow-brushed air.
My loneliness needs ice,
Frost for the landscape,
Chill for the burning thaw;
How spring can chafe the heart
And dazzle winter-shaded eyes, alone
I’m learning well.
Return, my love, restore
My April innocence.
I tell you what I never knew
Before: my seasons come and go
With you.
Page 23 (copyright 2001 Joanne R. Cage)
2nd prize, National contest, 1994.
Published in Prize Poems 1994, The Sampler 1997,
and New Dawn Unlimited anthology 2000.
1 comment:
Wow. Well, I'm impressed and a little unsettled by these beautiful poems. Lovely and tender words.
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