Marianne Szlyk
Yearning for Spring
I count bright green leaves
but find their waxy shade
impossible to bear in cold.
I seek snowdrops and crocus
but only see drowned camellias
closed to weak, winter sun.
Even in Savannah it’s not time
for magnolias or cherry trees.
Flowers wait in vases, inside.
Today I circle the fountain
its edges trimmed with ice,
its trim painful to touch.
Yearning for spring, I return
north to wait through winter’s
snows and winds to come.
Yearning for Spring
I count bright green leaves
but find their waxy shade
impossible to bear in cold.
I seek snowdrops and crocus
but only see drowned camellias
closed to weak, winter sun.
Even in Savannah it’s not time
for magnolias or cherry trees.
Flowers wait in vases, inside.
Today I circle the fountain
its edges trimmed with ice,
its trim painful to touch.
Yearning for spring, I return
north to wait through winter’s
snows and winds to come.
Marianne Szlyk is the editor of The Song Is... and a professor of English at Montgomery College. Last fall she published her first chapbook with Kind of a Hurricane Press: http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2014/10/listening-to-electric-cambodia-looking.html Her poems have appeared in a variety of online and print venues, including one of Silver Birch Press’s contests, Long Exposure, Bottlec[r]ap, ken*again, Of/with, bird's thumb, Carcinogenic Poetry, Flutter Poetry Journal, and Black Poppy Review as well as Kind of a Hurricane Press' anthologies from Of Sun and Sand on. She hopes that you will consider sending work to The Song Is.... To explore this blog-zine, see http://thesongis.blogspot.com/