March
The woods exhale a mist,
hillsides catch the sun.
Beneath its pitted crust
a creek begins to run.
Along a drifted hedge
girdled branches show
where hungry rabbits fed
when it was twelve below.
On top the backyard shed
a ridge of tattered snow
dissolves around its edge
and takes the melting slow.
The brittle sheet of ice
puddled beneath a spout
thaws and freezes twice
before the weekend’s out.
Naked trees cast down
a tracery of shade
across a patchwork yard
mottled white and brown.
The ground is working hard
to come back from the dead
and soften for the spade
that turns a garden bed.
by Richard Meyer, first published in Orbital Paths.
Guest Editor’s Note: It is difficult to manage delicacy in iambic trimeter, but Richard has done so here. The assonance is playful, especially the long “ee” sounds in each line of the fourth stanza.
Please welcome Guest Editor Earl Gray from March 20-March 24, 2017.
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