March 2024
Jenna Rindo
jennakayrindo@gmail.com
jennakayrindo@gmail.com
Bio Note: I worked for years as a pediatric RN at hospitals in Virginia, Florida and Wisconsin. These poems were drafted during April poem exchanges with other poets. I write to better understand the complications of the human body, mind and spirit—though the older I get the more shades of gray seem to blur my vision.
Should the Blossoms Survive
She shovels winter’s ashes into a pail. Soft soot will feed
spring’s first pink tulips and the taproots of thistle. The queen bee sleeps.
Her phone rings. Next month she begins a double blind chemo trial.
Published online as winner of the WI sijo contest 2022
Leap year requires
keeping secrets and telling lies.
It is February. The whole truth is
not possible. Nothing but tulip bulbs
buried below the frost survive in the soft
soot of winter's death count and
contamination.
March will be more promising. I pace
search the horizon--forecast a lamb
but March comes in with a lion’s
smile. Time to shelter in place, deep clean
cinders from the hearth. Scatter winter
its ash and debris around
the roots of heirloom roses.
I throw shards of Shetland
fleece into the wind. Red-throated
cranes and blue-headed grackles
will weave the wool into
tight nests, protect
their clutch from predators.
Wait for the egg-tooth of April.
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