Poetry Dual 34

A few fine words
​(at least, only a few words!)
 This week's dual is in recognition of the change of seasons and the arrival of spring. 
My poem shows my general excitement and anticipation of spring and the warmth and color and brightness that it portends.
Edna St. Vincent Millay presents a significantly darker look at the season.
PREMISE
Vote for which poem you prefer. Leave a note. Send me one of your to be in a future duel. Read them. Enjoy them.
PARTICIPATION
If you would like one of your poems featured, please reach out to me. I love to promote others' good works!
FINALLY
At the bottom will be a piece of flash fiction, sometimes mine, sometimes not.

As I Like It #34

Equinox
 
Spring arrives
Fragile like the new sprouts
Brave like the crocuses
Boisterous like the birds
Tough like the old squirrel
Who lived through one more
Dark, wet, cold winter
 
In spring is hope,
Rebirth, exuberance,
Resilience and determination.
 
Lengthening days,
A stronger Sun and color,
Bursting all around.
 
I love the annual arrival
For all it leaves behind
For all it anticipates
But also, yes also, for what it IS
Sit, when you can,
Relish the Spring in the present
For it, too, is transient
 
Coming this way but once this year.
Spring
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
​
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
​
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. 

Flash Fiction

The land lay waiting. Spring had come with all the chaos of seeds bursting forth into new plants and old plants stretching their roots. Summer had come with all the activity that the warmth and the light brings to the myriad living things. Then fall had come with the frenetic work of the harvest and the winding down and retreating to a lazy, drifting rest for the plants and animals that would overwinter. And now the land itself was ready for its long winter nap, happy to rest, at least for a season.
​
​Unpublished, by Greg Schroeder 

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