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.

Much about this now waning winter has felt fraught. From the quotidian to the global, it often seems as if the unpredictable has become the disconcerting norm. Yet, meteorological spring is here, friends; and the vernal equinox is fast approaching.

You are not alone. This message is poetry’s great gift. Other generations, too, have wondered how to find joy in a world on fire, how to spare love for a world seemingly bent on destruction. You are not alone, the poem whispers and lights the way.

Winter is an acquired taste, one which no one ever has savored more than Henry David Thoreau. As another winter settles in and a new, uncertain year approaches, I’ve been turning to Thoreau’s journals for reassurance that beauty still can be found even within the darkest of days.

The year has dwindled down to days. How do we not tote up our gains and losses, our quotidian triumphs and catastrophes? How do we not wonder which will fade and which will remain as we sidle into the unknown wilds of 2025?

The season of brilliance known as Fall Foliage is now past its peak. Nature, never one to indulge in instant gratification, will keep us waiting until next year for such glory to return again. Indeed, as October fades into November, the comparison to the morning after a much anticipated celebration is difficult to avoid. Whatever emotional let-down we might feel is physically reflected in the dull, dry leaves skittering and piling around our feet…