Planning a Spring Demonstration

[audio link]

This time I’ll design the scarlets
to arc and tromp through the blues
a cerise violence necessary
in the midst of a soft-bellied spring.

I’ll clump together fistfuls
of black dahlias and violets hot on
the heels of the snowdrops
an insurrection worth planning
—no pansy among them.

I’ll dig in buttery flags up
and down and across the asphalt road;
into the hard ground I’ll plunge
my spade—no nervous thought in this

half acre, and like mad swallows
there will be a high crosshatch
of purples, knife tipped rockets;
a shock, an uprising, a demand.

—Mary Wehner, Fond du Lac

 

Home|Contents|Next