April Poem

It is as the flowers begin to bloom,

the buds emerge on trees,

when the grass begins to green,

and the sun truly warms the air,

that I feel a shift inside.

My cells remember days like this.

My soul echoes days like this.

As everyone else, it seems

welcomes the awakening spring,

I want it to stop

or skip.

Stay cold damp late winter,

with snow that stays on the ground

for days instead of hours.

With chilly winter coat days

of gloved and hatted outings.

Or skip spring altogether.

Skip it with ferocious power.

Jump right over April and May,

slide into June. The height of summer.

Land me square into sweltering days

of shorts shirts and sandaled feet.

April is when the bad things happen

Rowanda

Waco

Oklahoma City

Columbine

Virginia Tech

Boston Bombing

April collects tragedy like a dog collects bones

like moths to the light

like flies to the face

like ants to the scum,

on the bottom of the trash can.

I imagine a time when April was just another month,

just another section of thirty days lumped together.

When April held no darkness in her blooming grasp.

When the light and life and birth of spring

was not conjoined with the bleakest of humanity.

They say “from tragedy comes opportunity.”

Maybe for April the opposite is true.

From the promise and opportunity of spring awakening,

comes tragedy.

I imagine a time when April could be

just another month to me.

When it could lose its meaning

like a word repeated too often.

It could be just another section of my life.

Where I welcome the opportunity of spring.

Where I can touch the budding flowers,

hold the swelling ends of branches,

and I feel the warmth of the sun.

by Krista Hanley