Mother Nature by Teh O

I admit, I cheated a little with this one, since I wrote in in late March — but I’d still like to share it, since I feel it fits with Read Write Poem Prompt # 72, “Spring Has Sprung”. Enjoy.

-Nicole

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April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

- T.S. Elliot, “Wasteland”

I call you up with cruelty. I break your back
with rain. My fingers dig into your flesh
and pull life upward from the thin cloak
of death that you put on last winter. You can’t

fool me.
You just look brown, tired, and
barren.

I work because I see pale lavender
buried inside you. I dig because I smell
green just below your surfaces. I call up
buds from you like an impatient taskmaster, because
I want the names of butterflies, honeybees, and
ladybugs upon your lips – I want these jewels

to hover
around your face
like a chorus of wandering
insect souls. This is
their time, too, to shine and explode
colors and wings in the splendor of
sunlight, to dig their little bodies
inside buds to drop seeds onto you
in slow time motion

(it takes weeks
to fashion the beginning of a tree),

and to capture the eyes
and torment of these humans. It is
for them, you know

that I make all of this happen – them
and the decoration of creatures resting
aboard your firm yet gentle skin. Their
souls bloom in response when they see
your colors. Their flesh firms, their
hearts dance, their songs rise up from
winter’s colors and fills the air – and memory
kindles desire. This must all happen now –
your temporary pain gives birth to astounding
beauty, and ever year you are praised the Universe over;

so though you curse me now, you must
understand, dear Earth, that I

must send you
the rain.

Written 3/25/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

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