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Poem of the Week
Vernal Equinox
March 21, 2005
It's hard to be a good wife early in the spring,
When the skies are so blue, and the butterflies a-wing.
My own man's a good man, my children are dear,
But there's just one moment at the turn of the year,
With the buds all bursting and the green things growing,
When I would be free as the four winds blowing!
When I would go answering a strange bird's call,
And not come back for anything at all,
But run as fleet and far as a wild young deer
To a green hill-side with a waterfall near.
I'd sit all day on a warm white stone,
And have a grand time with myself all alone!
I shouldn't care at all who smoothed the feather-beds,
Or put the dinner on to cook, or brushed the small heads.
For I should hear the brown seeds and grass-blades
talking,
And see, among the aspens, a red deer walking.
At dusk I'd hear the whisper of little creeping things,
And in the boughs above me, the stir of bright wings.
Close against the warm earth I would lay my ear,
And she would have no secrets I would fail to hear.
I'd listen to the wee things stirring in the thicket,
And be friends just alike with the star and the cricket!
I wouldn't go home till the moon was overhead,
And when I got home, I wouldn't go to bed,
But sit on the door-step and look at the night ---
For who can go to sleep when the moon is so bright?
My husband's a good man, my children dear,
But it's hard to be a good wife in the spring of the year!
--Jamie Sexton Holme
From Star Gatherer by Jamie Sexton Holme, New York, Harold Vinal, 1926.
Copyright, 1926, by Harold Vinal. Reproduction by Vintage Colorado Poetry,
non-profit literary archive, for scholarly purpose: [last 20 year rule]. Vintage
Colorado Poetry would welcome hearing from the author's family.
Previously posted: 5/24/04