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.