Meeting April 2026

 April is like everything else; it meets you like you meet it. I have known toothy Aprils. Ones that roared their victory over winter's leftover crumbs and devoured them to get even stronger. I've had Aprils that curl up next to me, tucking irrepressible wildflowers into my pocket while my head was pressed to a wall. Those Aprils put their arms around me and whispered into my ear while cherry blossoms rained around us. This one is a curious April, perhaps a little stubborn. Those flowers will bloom, though the wind will blow. And then we will see what colors they take on, what fruits will feed us in October.

the bud doesn't need
to know it's final color
in order to bloom

Photo by Rui Xu on Unsplash

Song Choice for this Groove: What's Up? by Four Non Blondes

Liner Notes for this Groove: This is linked to Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings post. The prompt asked us to find inspiration in a group of quotes about April. I think I took a little bit from both T.S. Eliot and Marty Rubin to come up with something that felt like me.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Just Remembered (50)

I’ve always looked forward
to the pink petalled canopy
that lines my street every birthday.

This year it’s hard not to feel
the ache in the break of the blooming,
marking the space left behind

by a marvelously messy cherry blossom tree.
I used to make wishes
under the shower of dancing petals.

Today, I make promises
to continue the dancing,

and hold back none of my blooming,

even knowing
that some spaces can never really be filled,
just remembered.

The view from one end of my street at this time of year.

It really looks perfect right around my birthday.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Your Landscape.

Hyacinths and Violets

Hyacinths and violets do their best
to remind me it’s springtime,
but I am still grieving
the loss of the sakura tree
and the way she inspired my blooming.

Picture of the stump left behind

from the sakura tree that used to grow near my house.

Song Choice: Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year by Sarah Vaughan

Liner Notes for this Groove: This poem was created for the Friday Writings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, What's There. One of the things that attracted me to the townhome I now live in was the cherry blossom tree growing right on the edge of the neighbor's property. It was cut down last year after being ill for quite a long time. I expect it will feel weird on my birthday when I won't be able to have a bowl of tea under its shade. 

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Why is That Crazy Woman Out Walking in the Rain?

1. Because though her boots and umbrella don’t match, they’re both cute in their own way and should be seen and used for splashing.
2. Because even though yesterday was a wash day, she’s got an interesting hat (that also doesn’t match) to protect her hair.
3. Because spreadsheets will still be there when she gets back, but rainstorms are now.
4. Because there’s nothing like a good shower to get over a block. It works for writing, why not this? 
5. Because she can imagine she’s attending a cherry blossom funeral, watching yesterday’s petals get swept along the roadways, and out to the drains that lead to something bigger somewhere else.
6. Because no one stops to make small talk in the rain.
7. Because the rain doesn’t care if you leak water too.
8. Because there has to be a rainbow at the end of all this, dammit. I haven’t been out here all this time just to go inside without seeing a rainbow.
9. Because angry-splashing so hard that rainwater makes it up and inside my boot makes me laugh.
10. Because I feel there’s something mad and lovely about laughing in the rain too.
11. Because I see a neighbor giving me an odd look out the window, and that makes me laugh harder until the rain slows down.
12. Because petrichor.
13. Because it might be little, but, finally, there’s that rainbow I needed.

Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Song Choice: I Like to Walk in the Rain by Shirley Temple

Liner Notes For This Groove: This poem was created for Poets and Storyteller United's Weekly Scribblings prompt, Listmania.

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.

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

Fare Thee Well: Blogging Around with Rommy Week 31

Photo by Anders Jildén on Unsplash

Wind scatters petals
sighing perfumed memories
as they fly away.
Still, I am grateful for spring
and the sight of the full bloom.

This poem is linked to the Tuesday Platform over at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads.

Liner Notes for this Groove: Someone who has been a dear friend to my husband and me since college is going to be moving away this week. Logically we know this is the best thing for him and his family. The cost of living will be much less, there are older relatives there who need care, and littles who will be adored by said relatives. But even though we live in a golden age of communication, we're still really going to miss the whole family.  

We got to spend some time with them before they headed out on Sunday. First we did Chinese buffet and as Ella Leya said in The Orphan Sky, “The conversation ran as fluidly as the tea out of the samovar’s crooked nose.” Then we hung out in our mutual friends' arcade and played like we were still all college kids (until the aforementioned little ones were ready to drop). It was one of the best ways to say goodbye that I could have imagined. 

Here's to Woody and his family...safe travels, best of luck. House Driks will miss you.

Song Choice: Saying Goodbye from Muppets Take Manhattan

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Un-Remembering Banished

I know the angle of the roof

though it’s hidden by the blossoms.

I know the feel of the blossoms

though none have fallen on my sleeve yet.

I know the way the wood will creek under my feet

though I haven’t stepped inside yet.

It is curious

how  I’ve forgotten less than I thought,

even after trying to stop thinking

of a place that was no longer mine

to call home.

In some ways it hurts more

to see what isn’t mine to claim,

ready to welcome others who stop

to seek sanctuary under these trees

that are every inch as much as an expatriate as I am.

Is there space

under the weeping cherry blossom tree

where I can close my eyes

and find out if it smells like home too?

View of Shofuso by Matthew Meyer from his Views of Philadelphia Series
Matthew also runs Yokai.com, one of the best resources of Japanese mythological critter lore that exists out there.

Song Choice: Once Upon a December from Anastasia

This poem was created for Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads' prompt, Kerry Says ~ Human-Landscape Interactions. It is also linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry 484.

Liner Notes for this Groove: I hope Kerry will be kind enough to forgive me, but I bent the rules a tiny bit. The voice in this poem does not belong to a human, it belongs to a yokai (a blanket term for mythological Japanese creatures that have a lot in common with the tricksie ways of old school Western faerie creatures). The yokai in question is Yuuki, a kitsune (Japanese fox spirit) who has several short stories starring him on this blog, and one in my collection, The Trouble with Wanting and Other Not-Quite Faerie Tales.

I've long been enchanted by Matthew Meyer's Ukiyo-e style Views of Philadelphia, and thought of them immediately when I read Kerry's challenge. Of course, the one of my beloved Shofuso (this is where I take most of my tea lessons) grabbed my eye. I know what I think of Shofuso, but I wanted to explore it from Yuuki's view in poetic form. I suspect I'll be tackling it in prose form too, and he will exchange words with a certain faerie who has been the guardian of this area since her cousin, the Faerie Queen of Philadelphia, granted it to her not too long after the American Revolution. But that summer solstice meeting will have to wait for another time.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Cherry Blossom Diva

I have a very limited engagement,

once a year, perhaps for a week.

My performances inspire artists and poets.

Emperors and peasants stop

to enjoy a moment under my boughs.

So imagine my displeasure

to see I’ve been upstaged

by snow.

Snow!

Clinging on my elegant limbs,

freezing my barely unfurling buds!

I simply cannot work like this.

If you can’t arrange for the proper conditions

for me to truly display the extent of my beauty,

I’ll simply stop performing

and you’ll have to wait until next year.

See to it this doesn’t happen again.

Actual picture of a tree in the Philly burbs on 4/9/16 taken by a friend, Christine Strieb

Song Choice: Primadonna by Marina and the Waves

This poem was inspired by Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads: Transforming With Nature's Words and by the cherry blossom trees who's peak bloom was cut short by an odd "second winter" in the Philadelphia suburb area (boo!)

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Afflicted

It was not an easy thing to admit,

this need.

I had done with girlhood fairytales.

Stupid to believe in those.

I learned my lesson.

It was just a kiss among the cherry blossoms,

a song at the right moment,

just touches of beauty sublime.

I ignored each golden thread spun from those moments,

binding me.

At the time, it seemed like I was caught in an instant,

but you set your trap well.

Before the words even left my lips,

there was no hope for me.

All that was left was to believe again.

I hope you’re pleased with yourself.

I know I am.

By Rommy Cortez-Driks

Art used with kind permission of artist: True Love by Studio Yuki. 

Check out more of her stunning photography at her etsy shop, Studio Yuki.

Song choice: Head Over Feet by Alanis Morissette 
This poem was created from a prompt offered by Magaly Guerrero for NaPoWriMo (Day 26: Speak to your affliction)

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)