ManicDDaily

 

June Upstate (Beginning of Vacation)

I call it spring,
because my children were
still lamblike
and we uncurled on a wool blanket
edged by grass that sprouted as wisps
rather than blades

and their hair downed
my arms, their heads resting so they too
could see the book, which I sometimes held aloft
a little like our own cloud, but more
like our own sun–what we
revolved around
that first country morning
as we moved the blanket about
an apple tree, in and out
of heat and cold,
brightness and wind,
the way the sky itself moved–
sometimes holding
our breath–for it was an exciting book,
a novel–
sometimes not speaking
in a way that was different
from listening, even me, not speaking,
who read aloud—for it had sad parts
too–

afterwards,
after words,
in a stiff unfold (as if our spines
had become the book’s spine),
our skin prickling (as if just then feeling
wool’s scratch),
and blinking at the overclouding blow
of afternoon,
we pulled ourselves back
into this single, unpaged, world, kneeling
as we rose.  

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A poem for Corey Rowley’s prompt on With Real Toads about a perfect spring day.  Spring doesn’t begin till rather late in the Catskills.   (The pic above was taken in more of a May time, but it truly is still spring in June in that all could freeze again before then!)