Sun again:

 

that geode cold light

that briefly splits the granite sky:

 

storms there: storms there:

darker because of this

temporary brightness.

 

The first shadows in a week

like inkfade ancient tattoos

impermanent crease crosshatched

on the last of the blue wash snow.

 

And the red and cream lilies

you stem snapped two days ago

despite again March like thaw water

still pollen fill the living room

with the smell of blossoming

which for them is the smell

of fade dying:

 

but not yet:

 

but not today.

 

 

John Walser

John Walser’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Spillway, Water-Stone Review, Plume, Posit and december magazine. His manuscript Edgewood Orchard Galleries has been a finalist for the Autumn House Press Prize, the Ballard Spahr Prize, and the Zone 3 Press Prize, as well as a semifinalist for the Philip Levine Prize and the Crab Orchard Series First Book Award. A four-time semifinalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize, as well as a Best New Poets, a Pushcart, and a Best of the Net nominee, John is a professor of English at Marian University and lives in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, with his wife, Julie.