Shacked up #NationalPoetryMonth #phenology

There was no sign of snow down around Baraboo the whole time we were there. As we returned home this morning, snow patches appeared about the time we were as far North as Turtle Lake. Meanwhile, across of much of Minnesota, there's a Red Flag fire warning. Spring in our North Country is an "interesting" (in the Minnesota sense) mixture.

"The Shack"

Photo by J. Harrington

April, and thus National Poetry Month, are almost past. Our visit to Aldo Leopold's Shack offered us the first view of Spring's ephemeral wildflowers we've had this year. Next month we'll check some places we've discovered for other opportunities. For now, we'll just enjoy having visited a shrine that's being well preserved and listen for more of Spring's song.

bloodroot amidst daylilies(?), North side of "The Shack"

Photo by J. Harrington

New Song

By Devin Johnston

After William IX, Duke of Aquitaine

As sweetness flows through these new days,

the woods leaf out, and songbirds phrase

in neumes of roosted melody

incipits to a new song.

Then love should find lubricity

and quicken, having slept so long.

The bloodroot blossoms, well and good,

but I receive no word that would

set my troubled heart at ease,

nor could we turn our faces toward

the sun, and open by degrees,

unless we reach a clear accord.

And so our love goes, night and day:

it’s like the thorny hawthorn spray

that whips about in a bitter wind

from dusk to dawn, shellacked with sleet,

until the sun’s first rays ascend

through leaves and branches, spreading heat.

I have in mind one April morning

when she relented without warning,

relenting from her cold rebuff

in laughter, peals of happiness.

Sweet Christ, let me live long enough

to get my hands beneath her dress!

I hate the elevated talk

that disregards both root and stalk

and sets insipid pride above

vicissitudes of lust and strife.

Let others claim a higher love:

we’ve got the bread, we’ve got the knife.

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