I have always loved April, not just for the arrival of Spring but it’s also my birthday. As a child, I loved Easter because of the goodie, and being an animal lover I had many bunnies and chicks for pets which I always got on Easter. I couldn’t find an Easter poem I’d ever written over the years, but I did find a nice spring poem about apple orchards. I never gave it a title though.
April 17, 1997
Spring season blossoms apple orchards
and Sundays sing of congregation
upside down bushel baskets seat pink melon faced men
who peel yellow granny apples with pocket knives
fruit peels fall to cracked mudded boots
mixing with brown rotting apple mash
yellow jackets hover to sip the dirty sweet
‘Neath rows of swelling branches
little girls sit in the shade
clover necklaces and patty cake games
boys tag and tease, and shake the trees
showering girls with white blossom petals
Women on the screened porch
fan themselves with church bulletins
and sip cool iced lemonade
soft powdered faces and plump cheeks
wrinkled hands, white hair, floral-print dresses
speaking gossip of absent choir members
or prepare bake sale services with apple pies
apple sauce, apple cinnamon cider
Men crunch on slices and halves
brag of orchard harvests, corn, green tomaters
count their laying hens, stuff pockets with handkerchiefs
for wiping juice from fat chins, sweat from back of necks
Boys and girls simply laugh soft happy laughs
while Sundays sing of congregation
of spring blossoming
and apple orchards.