April 2023
Bio Note: I sort of hate April Fool jokes; I'm too gullible. That's what comes to mind at our Editor's prompt about fools and wisdom. I'm sticking with April foolishness; when you live in Vermont you wish for April to come as quickly as it can. See my website at triciaknoll.com for current goings-on. I'll be doing some readings from my new book One Bent Twig (poems about trees) and celebrating Poetry Month.
Fool
Only a fool thinks everything stays the same. I love fulfilled expectations and flat floors. I assume my car will start, fillings will stay in my teeth. I am a fool who spends birthdays imagining myself reincarnate as squid, Icelandic pony, agate geode, western red cedar, or doorknob. Allowing moss to cling. Unwilling to give up on forever. Then I sniff a hint of wildfire or peaches going over-ripe. I start to breathe deeply, heady swap of I-am-of-this-earth. Air. Energy. Oneness. Changed from the day before, slim promise for the hour after that.
April 1
Would-be fools assemble to tell tall-tales and lies meaning to be funny. My dog has enough smarts to lay on a patch of stone in sun. The ice is in retreat, not gone, and where the snowplow scattered sand and gravel, I crunch toward the mailbox’s day of ads for lily bulbs, summer camps, and recent local votes that promise change.
April Sunset
This sky fluffs like a feather bed shaken, scattering compacted love and dust stretched and aired to jumpstart the soul. This sky blew in stepping-stone clouds for the ambitious, hopscotch for the children and a pebbled road for shadowed women fleeing home like ghosts on a back road past people sheltering in their quiet – where skylights hear wings beat and ears ring with geese going north through a red layer low to the woods. Day ending with holes in dappled sky as the universe offers itself vastly.
©2023 Tricia Knoll
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL