And above all, watch with glittering eyes
the whole world around you because the greatest secrets
are always hidden in the most unlikely places.
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

— Roald Dahl (Minpins, 1991)

Drip,
Rain
Drop
Plops,
Spring will come
With black mud, bees
And crocuses beneath trees.
Baby robins will scatter shells.
Fairies will chant vernal spells.
Birds will sing madrigals at dawn
To wood violets blooming on the lawn.
Foxglove’s speckled trumpets will play
With snowdrops and magnolias in May.

snowdrops

Ours shall be the gypsy winding
Of the path with violets blue,
Ours at last the wizard finding
Of the land where dreams come true.

— Lucy Maud Montgomery (from Spring Song)

Note: My poem, Spring Magic is a concrete poem, taking the shape of a drooping tulip or possibly a lily of the valley bell as suggested by Matt Forrest Ersenwine. Thanks, Matt! Happy Spring! This post is an ode to Spring in honor of the Vernal Equinox which is at 6:45 p.m. here on March 20, 2015. And a happy coincidence, also in honor of Poetry Friday, hosted this week by Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core who shared a wonderful original poem for World Folk Tales and Fables Week. I hope you have time to visit her. The photographs were all taken last spring — this year the ground is covered by a knee-deep sea of receding white ice.

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

September 29, 2014

Posted under

Photography, Poetry

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27 Comments

A Pine Tree Wakes

When I wake from my long dreaming,
I first look up at the sky.
Far above me, magic dances in white clouds.
Mother Oak holds me fast, in her roots.
Poetry is the movement of her leaves.
Far below me, the river sings its longing for the sea.

Rivulets sink toward the secret aqueduct far below,
The dark, watery womb of all life.
Some droplets rise to adorn cloud castles.
Singing waters plunge over falls,
Scenting the embrace of Lake Ontario.
Flocks of starlings bank and turn.

Wildflowers thirst, drink the spray,
And tremble on the cliffs.
The leaves feel the passing of the season,
As the water does not. As I do not.
We are constant, the water and the pine.
I hold fast to my cliff; I sink back into my dreams.

Note: These photographs were taken at Letchworth State Park, where the Genesee River has carved a deep canyon in its headlong rush to join Lake Ontario, the Easternmost Great Lake, that lies between the US and Canada.