And so they grow-
Spiraling upwards,
Fractals and whorls expanding,
Embracing the pale and growing light,
The dream of not-yet cherries
Rich on the tongue.
Dreams are no less sweet for the repetition of hope
I welcome the thick, rich taste of spring.
For more dreams, sweet and otherwise, my fantasy novel, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.
Spring carries surprise on its back,
Secrets buried by snow and frost unearthed
Left stranded on beds of mud and decaying leaves.
Debris from lives frozen and unthawed-
Skeletons and litter in equal measure.
And still there are the other surprises-
Life carried to places unexpected
And unrecognized
A lone shoot on the hilltop or
A patch of daffodils
Deep between the trees.
Small, strange surprises of unexpected brilliance
Spring is an odd grab bag of strange lives and deaths.
For more of the unexpected, my fantasy novel, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.
The beginning of spring is an exercise in caution
The very tips of buds
The faintest hints of shoots and
Lone notes of bird song
Punctuated by stillness.
It is the world at its most simple
The barest, strictest branches of life
Sent forth in hope
That they will not be claimed
By the retreating tendrils of winter.
There is a beautiful simplicity to optimism
I am always heartened by how the world persists in the face of constant setbacks.
For more hopeless optimism, minimalist and otherwise, my fantasy novel, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.
In the middle of nowhere you find them-
The pieces of net, small remains of larger conquests.
I would say that they are the ghosts of the salmon runs,
The afterimages that remain when the fish and the fishers are gone,
But-
Some of them are from a time when nets were hemp or nettle,
Somehow preserved in the wash of rocks, water, and salt.
And maybe they are still afterimages-
Not of this year,
But of a dead world,
Where waters thick with fish
Dreamed of the emptiness to come.
Ghosts of past waters, sad and strange
We carry our ghosts with us in the lands of resources.
For more waters, ghost inhabited and otherwise, my fantasy novel, The Guests of Honor, is available here. Its sequel, With Honor Intact, can be found here.
Cat Amesbury 