Poems of the Month
Nature is both a generous and an exacting teacher. Our gleanings of the seasons – toil, transcendence, patience, acceptance, drought – are as present in us as they are in the flavors of the dishes which grace our Thanksgiving tables. This November, may we harvest nature’s lessons of the heart as we gather and give thanks for whatever “common ground” we can find with those dear ones we love but don’t always understand.
Oh, October… You there with your otherworldly vermilion, cerise, and canary colored leaves brazenly winking and waving at your cloudless azure sky; you, October, are the month which reminds us that even as we despair for a world on fire, nature’s beauty still burns with an unbridled brilliance to comfort, inspire, and stir us all.
September’s singular beauty lies in its unexpected stillness, in its reflective pauses which stop us in our tracks with a uniquely autumnal slant of light or briskness of breeze as we shepherd children out the door to school or harvest the bounty of our gardens. From the high prospect of September, we can survey the months which have passed and, perhaps, if we squint hard enough, glimpse those up ahead in the distance.
Even the most diligent and attentive of gardeners find themselves flummoxed by August. By this point in the summer, the amateurs’ early enthusiasms have flagged; and they either have packed it in for good or are gazing past their sere and surrendering beds to next year’s imagined glory. It is no small or simple thing to love a garden or a farm or an orchard...
July is the sweet spot of summer. Hopes for snaring days of ease or adventure still run high. The sun’s blazing presence, despite our recent heatwave, still holds wonder in our eyes. Indeed, early summer is a pleasant dream from which we’ve been roused but not yet fully awakened. The world and work and worry will await us always - at no time more than now.
Once again, the summer solstice approaches. Five years ago, when this month’s featured poem was written, our world was masked and socially distanced; a vaccine for the virus which held us in its thrall was still a dream. George Floyd had just died. A climate apocalypse loomed. Sadly, today, many of us are reminded of the French saying, plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose: The more things change, the more they stay the same…
Mothering, as any close observer of nature knows, is hard work. Even under the most felicitous of conditions, the young and defenseless must perpetually be nourished, guided, and protected. Under siege by storm or drought or predator, that effort escalates exponentially. For human mothers, too, the work is often arduous and the threats – and compromises – staggeringly abundant.
Typically, National Poetry Month is a time of celebration here in our singularly literary neighborhood. Yet, this April is, as Joanne DeSimone Reynolds writes, “a hard March.” For many of us now, seemingly everything from the global to the quotidian is infused with anxiety. Even poetry, even spring’s awakening.
Isn’t “letting go” the motto of December? Weeks, days, hours…2025 is dwindling to a nub. We remember the routine; it is an ancient one which nature annually nudges us to repeat. We toast the year that was (and remains still, briefly) and turn toward the cold, the dark, and the unknowns of the year ahead with both resolve and resolutions. December, after all, is our time of practice and rehearsal.