Felicia Sanzari Chernesky

Almost The storm sweeps past, leaving traces of snow.The road is marked with morning tracks. Monday begins. The child, glutted on snow days, is very reluctantly dressedand glaring at the disappearing whorls on the forecaster’s shifting map. Mother sips her coffee and turns to the kitchen window, smiling. Outside the glass five Eastern bluebirds alight among burnt-orange berries on the leafless Bittersweet vine. Blue wings sing spring, for this brittle tease of snow is the sleight of early March.The child boards the bus as Mother waves. More birds land and peck then fly. Inside the naked vinethe newest blood awakens. Convergence With teasing wit March generates a pulse.The earth, awake, retains the absence ofa deer hoof that’s a cup of nuisance snow.What’s more alive than what is on the verge? A splurge of crocus bloomed in sleeping grass,the cold green daffodil about to burst,each egg that will unleash a riot’s voice: awakened is the steward of spring’s choice. Tempest The birds are busy outside my office window.We all have work to do. A job’s a job—and purpose-filled is purposeful enoughthough never half as beautiful as birdsong.Am I just a noisemaker? I sit before this blinking screen and bow. The house is still as windows wait for sound to seethe and foam across some great divide. Each word spills joy. Felicia Sanzari Chernesky is a longtime editor, slowly publishing poet, and author of six picture books, including From Apple Trees to Cider, Please! and The Boy Who Said Nonsense (Albert Whitman). In 2018 she left the masthead of an academic quarterly to work with people who want to share their stories, ideas, and poems in print. Felicia lives with her family in Flemington, New Jersey. Find her online, with links to recent publications, at www.feliciachernesky.com.