Golden Purslane
The seed packet promises fifty days
of golden-hued leaves among the greens,
larger and more upright in its ways
than its wild cousin, gangly and fey,
which seeds itself, stretching grayish green.
The seed packet promises fifty days
crisp and brightly flavored, swallowtails
who pause, drift away, beetles who scurry unseen
beneath the large, upright, golden displays,
leaving spirograph designs in the loam, arrays
of hidden lives, promises of rolling in the clover, green
and lush, of salads, soups, whole picnics for days,
stir fries, stews, wine and cheese, fragrant bouquets.
Dragonflies will land, hover and sway, bright green
and larger still, upright, glinting in their way.
Fresh furrows mark a passage on the page.
To plant a seed is to know exactly what I mean:
to plant a promise, a golden packet of days,
to grow larger and more upright in your ways.
‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers –
The starling jumps down into the hole,
bits of brown clutched in her yellow beak.
The cheeping from below is an echo
of yearning. Once a summer storm yanked
this trunk in two. Hidden in the tangled
growth, a wound becomes a refuge.
The gutters this side of the roof, so long
neglected, sprout seedlings which lean into
the white rail and wave, ladies at a balustrade,
happy passengers about to embark
on a doomed ship. This balcony floats,
tethered among the branches. Billowing
sails of leaf-printed silk, inhale and exhale,
sunlight over shadow. No one loves
a starling, yet she weathers the swales.
Such a bird, each spring, commandeers the heart.
She prepares a nest and ties it fast, wants
to set sail, to fling caution to the wind.
She perches on the mast, and with rusty
clicks and old tin whistles, she starts to sing.
*from poem #254 by Emily Dickinson
Death in Spring
Think of the March earth as the body’s letting go.
Think of the ice melting as the last, slow breath.
Unclench. The incessant grip of winter releases
months like years, years like dark wells.
The jaw slackens, the spine slumps. The wind and rain,
their moan and slash, are death throes.
It’s impossible to hold back the bright cardinals
of memory gathering in the dogwood.
The painful crust softens, and all that’s frozen
morphs into a muddy dream, a vernal pool of grace.
A vase of daffodils will sit on April’s table.
Grasp the lowest branch, pull, then climb
into the green and yellow sky. Blossoms,
like shy children, will turn their faces to you.
Kim Ports Parsons is returning to poetry after two decades. Past work appeared in publications such as Prairie Schooner and Baltimore Review. She taught writing in schools and communities for years, then worked in libraries. Now, she grows vegetables at the foot of the Shenandoahs, and writes poems once again.