Michigan in The Spring, Pt. 2

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

-T.S. Eliot

Buds throb red.

Cold raindrops cling
to bare branches
after the first
April storm.

My fingertips swelling,
my body pulses:

the center
of this old wound,
still fresh.

Still, I don’t
pull off my gloves--

There are no leaves
opening
from this tree.

-Justine Nicholas

my backyard is honey
and a bumblebee sweeper
broccoli wood, memory of a previous year

chilled wet grass
almost Eden

it’s spring, a celebration
that will pass too fast

-Margaret James

I don't mean interspersing sublime poetry with my mediocre photographs as any attempt to strengthen the latter. These verses simply portray the feelings exhumed by a warm spring storm.