April in Ohio
By Denise
Levertov
Each day
the cardinals call and call in the rain,
each cadence scarlet
among leafless buckeye.
and passionately
the redbuds that can’t wait
like other blossoms, to flower
from fingertip twigs,
break forth.
as Eve from Adam’s
cage of ribs,
straight from amazed treetrunks.
Lumps of snow
are melting in tulip-cups. #
Long ago, around 1976, when I was working as an English tutor at the University of Cincinnati, a colleague by the name of Sarah Cotterill showed me this poem by Denise Levertov. I think the great poet had been a visiting professor at the University of Cincinnati around 1975 or so--and wrote this poem in response to Ohio's treacherous spring weather. Sarah Cotterill herself is a wonderful poet and has published some fine books of poetry.
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| Forsythia |
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| Forsythia in snow, and a frozen daffodil |
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| The only intact daffodils are ones I picked a couple days ago! |
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| View from my deck on a snowy April 3, 2016 |
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| Cardinals, chickadees, sparrows, all sorts of birds, around my birdfeeders this morning |
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