On an April morning, how not to worship
the sun, that goddess who day by day rises
higher in the sky, her blessing reaching
the farthest corner of the kitchen, the spot
the spiders chose for their winter sanctuary.
How not to build her temples as did the ancients,
put her face in our holiest places. How not to bow
before her works—dogwoods in white garments,
oaks draped in beige lace, fields filled with congregations
of buttercups, the hills a jubilation of bluebells, columbine,
Solomon’s Seal, quiet trillium bowing in the hollows.
How not to spend our days in obeisance, backs bent
as we kneel before her, hands deep in earth, hearts
those winged things trailing the deity.
Solstice has come, daylight lingering
as if there is all the time in the world.
In the garden beans bloom and vine, and bloom
again, sunlight igniting their cells, the urge
toward growth a raging storm. We have come
from dark of December into your light, have come
trailing our yearning like a chain that sometimes
ignites sparks, sometimes binds us to the dreary
as if there will never again be light.
Dear June, we mourn your going even while
we celebrate your arrival, know you
are the good we are offered, know your gift
of light comes with the shadow of darkness.
But, oh, while the sun is warm, the grass green,
we praise your generosity, bow to the forces
that have once more brought us into this world
of abundance, earth shimmering with each footfall.
A wave of grass not unlike
an ocean’s surge and retreat
calls me from household chores
that bind my days, draws me out
where crows caw warnings to the owl,
late returning home, and now
the farmer next door, ancient definition
of neighbor, rolls into the field,
straw hat riding his head as he
steers the John Deere, a team as familiar
as earth itself. He strokes the stick
shift, gears meshing, lowers the side
mowing machine to its hungry
task, waves of hay slipping to earth
the way my weariness with the world
slips from me,
the summer sun
bright as grace.
Gratitude, only a word from among millions
hangs in your mind, all day its siren song attracts
images that cling to its sticky surface like butterflies
gone to summer’s first sweet blooms:
A hummingbird flying through the spray
of your garden hose, the quick dart of
his aerodynamic body, beak forward,
wings a blur through the rainbows
of arcing water drops—
your young children beneath the oak,
heads bent to paths they’ve carved
in the dry dirt of late summer’s landscape,
the vinegary smell of their damp scalps
when evening sends them back into your arms—
your husband in from his Saturday
chores, faint bits of hay clinging
to his shirt, pilled to his socks,
the odor of freshly cut
grass rising around him—
your parents and your sisters
so many years in the past,
the small house where you grew
from child to young adult,
fed on fresh vegetables and love,
bonds that held you, a boat built
to ride out the fiercest storm, to deliver
you finally to this peaceful place where
day slowly unwinds and evening waits
with her splendid star-filled sky, her soft
breezes, your gratitude a waterfall
where you drink deeply day after day.
Connie Jordan Green lives on a farm in East Tennessee where she writes and gardens. She has published award-winning novels for young people, newspaper columns, poetry chapbooks and collections, with a third collection, Nameless as the Minnows, due out from Madville Publishing in Spring 2025. Her poetry has been nominated for Pushcart Awards. She teaches writing workshops for various groups.
