Thank you to Claude McKay (1889-1948) for the following and its title, both of which remind me that one day we'll be done with this interminable winter season. There will be an "after." Bring on the droning bees and the ferns! (See also Yeats's "Lake Isle of Innisfree" for more bees.) I found the McKay at poets.org, the site of the Academy of American Poets, and it is in the public domain. The Poetry Friday roundup today is at author Laura Purdie Salas's blog. Edited to add: don't miss Tanita Davis's look at McKay's "If We Must Die" over at her place, Fiction, Instead of Lies.
*****
After the Winter
by Claude McKay
Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning’s white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
Have sheltered for the night,
We’ll turn our faces southward, love,
Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire to shafted grove
And wide-mouthed orchids smile.
And we will seek the quiet hill
Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
And works the droning bee.
And we will build a cottage there
Beside an open glade,
With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
And ferns that never fade.
Photo by Susan Thomsen
Chicken Spaghetti 
Leave a reply to Mary Lee Cancel reply