Who Can Think of Spring?

I often think about the still-born spring, three years ago, when it seemed like nothing would ever grow again—not even in our woods. The woods were lost girl met lost girl, years and years ago. We decided that it was safest to believe in magic to find the way through. We lifted moss-colored words from the banks of our creek to line our path and tucked stories into trees. 

I wonder if the trees notice you are gone, when I go to pick up scraps of memories caught in the brambles by the creek. I wonder what the creek thinks when I try to weave those scraps into something recognizable, something that makes sense. Spring green should not be the color of grief, but even now, in the spaces where growth is undeniable, spring always arrives late for me. 

 

who can think of spring
while grieving the one flower
that will not grow back

Photo by Ed Leszczynskl on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song choice: Gavi's Song by Lindsey Stirling

Liner notes for this Groove: This poem is linked to Poets and Storyteller United's Friday Writings Prompt, In Memoriam.

Solstice 2023

I greeted the Sun empty-handed
worn out from too long nights
spent counting out collected griefs
from near and far.

The Sun gave me Her gift

of the light I could not hide from
illuminating who I was
and asking what I wanted to be
the morning that light came back 

into the world.

Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me cover by Roger Daltrey

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem is linked to Poets and Storytellers United Friday Writings. 

Spring Insists on Coming

Spring insists on coming.
Even though winter still gnaws
at the edges of my world,

spring will not stop coming, coaxing
life from the seeds
I thoughtlessly planted,

not understanding how fragile
the sprouts’ little green necks
can be, stretching out skyward.

Some will never make it that far,
asleep forever
where even late frost can’t hurt them.

But spring is here
and for whatever it’s worth
so am I.

Photo by imso gabriel on Unsplash

Song Choice: Carry On My Wayward Son covered by First to Eleven

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem in linked to the Friday Writings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Today's Story

What story will I tell myself today?
I wonder,
smelling spring green
mixed into November leaf piles.

Will this be the one
about the dancing trees
with the tempo of their sway
commemorated in the bark?

Maybe I’ll think about the lost
autumn wind that shaped the dancers'

trunks and branches
and how it will return
like no time had passed
between meetings.

You sound like a woman who hasn’t given up,
I say, letting my heart take comfort
in the hush-shush song

my feet make when I ramble on
though a field of leaves
only slightly out of my way
on my walk home.

I answer back,
I really haven’t,

at least not this time.

Maybe I really never will, I add,

making another satisfying crunch

in last year's leaves,

while knowing my pen and notebook
are still waiting in the place
I last set them down.

Photo by Konstantin Dyadyun on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Anne with an E soundtrack suite.

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings prompt, Dialog.

Spring Hymn

What could not survive
winter lies cracked and broken.
Don’t be gentle, wind,
bear away what will not bloom
so that hope can plant its seeds.

Photo by Saad Chaudhry on Unsplash

Song Choice: Spring 1 composed by Max Richter

Liner Notes for This Groove: This tanka is linked to Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings Prompt. I did mean to write about cake, but the wind was so wild and lovely today, I just had to get my thoughts down about it.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Bare

People will always talk
about the pretty perfection
of falling leaves

but hush
when conversation turns
to branches stripped bare.

Photo by Shaojie on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the prompt given at Poets and Storytellers United, October.

Sakura

What magic to be
included in the dancing
of a sakura,
from when it spun from its tree
to the moment it lay still.

Photo by Anders Jildén on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Mother Earth and Father Time from Charlotte's Web

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the prompt given at Poets and Storytellers United's Weekly Scribblings prompt, Liminal Space.

When Winter Comes

Some wounds are deep
enough to bleed through generations—
aches handed down as heirlooms
listed on wills with invisible ink.

It couldn’t be helped. Then 

silence was a virtue
(and here everyone believes that
please scream inside your heart
is just so 2020).


There’s an evolutionary advantage
to all the wild ‘what ifs’
buzzing like discomforted wasps
looking for a target.

At least that’s what I heard on NPR once.


If I have time for NPR,
I have time to consider
all the seasons
the wounds have lingered—

all the thorns in the spring,
all the hollows of the summer,
all the breaking of the autumn—

and what I’m going to do about them.

I hope
that by the time winter comes
some wounds have time to close

and I will know that I have done my part
to pass on what it means
to walk away from legacies
we don’t want to hold on to anymore.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Song Choice: Teach Your Children Well by Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

This poem was created in response to the prompt given at Poets and Storytellers United, Weekly Scribblings #40: Walk Away.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

October

Photo by Esther Wilhelmsson on Unsplash

October's leaves are pumpkin-colored confetti of celebration whose crunch carries the whispers of the grave. Like all magical things, October has its price. I cherish its gifts all the more for it.

I breathe deeper in
October’s sweet beginnings
and its harsh endings.

Song Choice: Only Time by Enya

This poem was created for the prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Weekly Scribblings #39: October Thrills. 

Liner Notes for this Groove: October happens to be the birthday month for some very cool people, including my husband and my son. It also is the month I said goodbye to my first dog, Faye, and to a dear friend, Mike. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

April 2020

On my birthday,

I will take my tea

under the branches

of a dying cherry tree.

It has its scars, like I do,

raw and still exposed.

Ants have worried their way into the crevasses

and I know those wounds will not close.

But I see the buds

of the promised pink

that swirls around me

at the end of every April,

even though many of the branches

will never bear a bloom again.

It is enough that some of its branches will still flower.

It is enough that I still take up my pen.

Close up of a cluster of cherry blossom buds
thinking about blooming. They're stubborn.

Song Choice: Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance (I couldn't resist using an AMV version with clips from My Hero Academia)

Liner Notes for This Groove: I pulled a double off today, utilizing both the prompt at Poet's and Storytellers United (Weekly Scribblings #14 Let's Use Pathetic Fallacy, Shall We?) and Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads, Play it Again prompt, A L'Arora.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Autumn's Breath: Blogging Around with Rommy Week 41

Autumn Breath
Jason Limberg
Used with Permission

Autumn’s breath should be crisper

than the first bite of an apple.

It should carry the musk

hidden in the heart of leaf piles.

It should whip past you

with the snap of a newly bared branch.

But when it is smothered too long

in a zombie summer’s dregs,

even the animals’ whispers will carry

across the sullen air.

This poem was created for Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads' Art Flash prompt. It is also linked to Poets United's Pantry of Poetry and Prose.

Liner Notes for This Groove: I can remember being disappointed by freezing Halloweens in my youth - ones so cold that you had to wear a big jacket and no one could tell what you were dressed as. As much of a bummer as those were, I have to say that this recent one's unseasonable warmth bothered me more. I was able to run around in a short sleeve dress without needing a light sweater. I did however have a cup of tea with me as I was giving out the candy. As Thea Devine wrote, "Tea was the great leveler. It brought calm, quiet, contentment, warmth. And it was something to do." At least I could depend on my evening cuppa to be exactly what I expected.

Song Choice: Fall on Me by R.E.M.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

False Spring

Do not trust the sun in early March. It's promises mean nothing. Winter is a lazy monarch in those days, allowing occasional warmth to creep in until she remembers herself. Be patient. In time, she shall yield to her sister seasons. Then it will be safe to grow.

False spring tempts rash seeds

afraid to miss any warm days.

It's braver to wait

under snow, gathering strength,

trusting warmer days will come.

Song Choice: Wait For It from Hamilton

This poem is linked to The Tuesday Platform over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

First Green

They look like hope-

those first buds swelling,

with all the possibilities

of a life happily started

under a warming April sky

fed by vanishing March snow.

And I still hoped,

even as my roots told me

the earth is still cold.

The sun is lying.

I cannot lie.

I felt the buds

push towards the sunlight,

and dreamed

of the first green uncurling,

only to have

the March wind screech,

pulling me from dreams

to see stillborn green

devoured by a shroud of ice.

Song Choice: I See A Darkness by Johnny Cash 

This poem was inspired by the prompt given over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads, Speaking For Spring's Stillborn Sprouts.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Exalted in Scarlet

The wind acts as herald,

as sharp as the sound of a hand clap

calling you to pay attention,

because the procession is about to begin.

Summer enjoys a few last tumbles,

as Autumn promenades onward

to the sound of cricket minstrels.

The swish of Autumn’s robes

is heard in the rustling of the leaves,

who have donned their festival colors

in honor of its arrival.

Autumn waves starlight trimmed sleeves
while the nights grow longer
and nature's din dims to
sighs and susurrations.

I can't help slowing down too,
swept up in the pageantry
of Autumn's regal progression.



Song Choice: Kamigama-Sama from Spirited Away

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Maypole

May is the languor

following April’s cruelties,

yielding up the flowers

Constance Chatterley

wove around the base

of the maypole

that drew her dancing feet.

May lends itself well

to dancing feet

sustaining bodies

willing to fall

into the rhythms

dictated by the ancient dance

around the maypole.

Our gyrations

are limited only

by lengths of silken ribbons

as we wind in and out.

Until at last we are spent,

my voice just a whisper,

as I rest besides you

sighing your name.

Song Choice: Dance Naked by John Mellencamp

Summer Sunflower by Christine Greenwood Strieb. 

Original art at her Etsy store, Dragonfeather Art Work.

This poem was inspired by the prompt given by Magaly Guerrero for Dark Poetry for the Cruelest Month: Yesterday Never Dies, which told me to look at the prompt given over at Imaginary Gardens for Real Toads: Poetizing the Maypole. 

Spring Thaw

Ice transformed by sun

into gold rivulets

with sunlight playing

on the surface

flow down streets

and onto earth,

nudging spring

into being.

Song Choice: Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles

This poem was inspired by the prompt given over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads, Micro-poetry challenge. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

An April Haiku

First butterfly seen

A fall of cherry blossoms

Tea amid them both

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: Sakura Saukura
This poem was created from a prompt offered by Magaly Guerrero for NaPoWriMo (Day 14: Favorite things to do in April)

Run

(Just a quick poem I worked on yesterday, after a vague sort of dusting of snow.)

The snow was much deeper then

and you and I were much younger.

But when it glittered at just the right height,

and the powder of it was just so

we’d run.

Leaving nothing
but sprays of crystalline glitter and prints behind us

we’d run,

when good folk were working, cooking, studying

and generally intent on busy-ness.

That might have been me too,

when I was even younger still,

cocooned beneath cinder and cement,

looking outside and longing,

but afraid.

The snow is not right yet.

The leaves are mostly gone.

But the sky still has not made up its mind.

Eventually it will,

and when it does

I’ll run.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks