The Ohio valley is astir with May.
-- Merrill Gilfillan, Burnt House to Pawpaw
month of Maia
goddess who greens the earth
in New Mexico
sproutkale month
blackthorn winter comes
and wind harasses
new leaves of redbud
elm coins rain down
germinate in mud-filled groves
under the pine and the flowering cherry
pink locust tree in flower
come, white sweet
*
in West Virginia
inscape of bloodroot and shonny haw
Upjohn and Lilly’s chosen herbs
mayapple root
hulls
of black walnut
queen
of the meadow
*
Beltane Eve
on the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy
spring peepers silver the air
the Tug Fork now an endangered river
*
black warbler dead beside the water
sassafras lifting its mitten leaves
who can plead ignorance
of stars and lilacs?
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