Like Straw Now, April 1

Like straw now,
heavy marsh grasses
lie useless, broken,

trees without a leaf
circle dark water,
mere black skeletons,

yet through the open window
hundreds of peepers surprise
with loud singing, under

a sun there to waken,
like a curtain going up on
this stage of earthtime,

monotonous music
a sharp stroke of color
across a nearly dead drama.

Marilyn’s nature poetry book is Lichen, Poems of Nature,

obtainable at http://www.blurb.com in their “bookstore”.

The front and back cover are her recent watercolor of an old limb

covered with blue lichen–delicate, vulnerable, tough.