Letter to April
Thank you for new life,
Your shy trilliums shoot through woodsy
soil—floral tri-foils spreading their own kind
of faith, hope, and charity; a rapid burst
of phacelia—frilled snowflakes in a gorge
of green—mountains’ awakening; redbud
and yellow crocus sprouting with spring-rain
rainbows promising joy, but your adornment
doesn’t soften the hard truths of roses or make
the graveyards full of columbines any prettier.
John C. Mannone has poems appearing/accepted in the 2020 Antarctic Poetry Exhibition, North Dakota Quarterly, The Menteur, Blue Fifth Review, Poetry South, Baltimore Review, and others. His poetry won the Impressions of Appalachia Creative Arts Contest (2020). He was awarded a Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature and served as celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). His latest of three collections, Flux Lines: The Intersection of Science, Love and Poetry, is forthcoming from Linnet’s Wings Press (2020). He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex and other journals. A retired physics professor, he lives near Knoxville, Tennessee. http://jcmannone.wordpress.com
Image Credit: “Larger White Tillium” from How to know the wild flowers (1893) Image Courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library
As It Ought To Be 