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This poem was
published in this Spring's edition of Laurels, a seasonal anthology
published by the West Virginia Poetry Society. Melba Dungey, a feisty
lady in her late seventies, is the archivist of the WVPS. a Francois Villon ballade
for Melba Dungey
Warm fingers of Spring inch across our cold land,
awakening life from its Winter repose.
In fields fanned by furrows, and gardens now bland,
up mountains, through valleys, this miracle flows.
At last! this long Winter now draws to a close
as crocuses cruise on a quivering bog,
in yellows, and whites, and intense indigoes:
make dreams come alive from your seed catalogue!
From pictures of gardens, ideas are planned,
and beautiful blossoms will bloom where you chose.
In beds drawn on paper with crayons at hand,
comes visions of seedlings in tiny green rows,
and misted so gently by spray from a hose.
Outside my warm greenhouse comes Winter's last flog,
the dreariest drizzle with flurrying snows:
make dreams come alive from your seed catalogue!
Preparing for flowers with compost and sand;
peat-pungent delight to the gardener's nose.
Day-dreaming of Summer - and Autumn - is grand
when blended perfumes float from floral tableaux;
or reaping the harvest from seed that one sows.
These wonderful things will keep minds agog
as up from the soil one's experience shows.
Make dreams come alive from your seed catalogue!
l'envoi
Old Sol shovels sunshine on Winter's death throes:
Forget all the freezing - the dank fetid fog -
the whiteouts - the blackouts - the blizzard that froze -
make dreams come alive from your seed catalogue! |
