Robin Chapman
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5/4-5/5
Madison
Dear Ones—yesterday, coming up
to gulp spring air after a month
of work, I watched seven inches of snow
fall through the pairs of opening leaves
the pagoda dogwood held out,
its handfuls of snow
borne up briefly like homage
to the world departing, the world
to come. In Wingra woods today
the Indian mounds are mottled
with trout lily leaves; along
the springs, marsh marigolds border
the water in brilliant yellow,
luxuriant green. Tucked into the island
off Skunk Cabbage bridge among
bleached grasses, streaks of a darker
green and paler yellow are heads
of mallards, nesting. I feel
the surge and pull of time, the pulse
that hums and runs and roars
through all of us in the lengthening
light, flowering jack throbbing
in the cabbage's fleshy vase,
the sparrows' noisy promiscuous mating.
Of yesterday's snow, only a trace.
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Robin Chapman's poems have appeared recently in Alaska Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, and Wilderness. Recipient of the 2010 Appalachia Poetry Prize, she is author of seven books of poetry, most recently the eelgrass meadow from Tebot Bach. Her book Abundance, winner of Cider Press Review Book Editors' Award, has just become available on Amazon's Kindle.