It’s Poetry Friday!
Laura Purdie Salas is our hostess this week. Laura is a gifted poet and children’s author, and her latest book OSKAR’S VOYAGE is out! Check out her blog post and follow the links to a plethora of poetry!
spring as awkward guest
spring crept to the desert stage
without warning
no one paid attention
not at 110 degrees
when it dissolved into
a scrubby, barren hillside last year
disappeared
like a squatter
bearing its cross in silence
a whispered prayer for withered seeds
left behind
today fields blur in emergent green
sweet acacia sports yellow pompoms
shorn bracts of bougainvillea, katie-ruellia
brave the longer days, impatient
for the fullness of summer sunrays
draped with hope
for a spring that might linger
a little longer
photo courtesy of pixabay
poem @2024 Patricia J. Franz
Patricia Franz is a kidlit writer and published poet. She believes children, dogs, and sourdough have a lot to teach us about life, joy, and wonder. She has raised two boys, four dogs, and holds a master’s degree in Theology with a focus on children’s spirituality. Patricia, her husband, her Bernese Mountain dog, Bonny, and her sourdough starter split their time between the Arizona desert and the Sierra Nevada mountains. 
That photo! Truly the “desert stage.” I hope spring lingers for as long as you want it to.
This is beautiful work, Patricia! I read it several times to let the words settle in my mind. I hope you get to enjoy a lingering spring this year.
Patricia, well aren’t you blessed to get to experience that hope for a longer spring. I know from having lived in your desert for ten years, you chose the right words for that hope: “might linger a little longer.” It can end any day, we know. In the meantime, it is something to delight in. I love how you are a naturalist and can share the names of plants, more evidence of your subtle appreciation for what you are seeing.
Thank you for sharing! The line “a whispered prayer for withered seeds” feels especially lovely and powerful to me. Happy Poetry Friday!
Patricia, here are some thoughts that resonate with me: “like a squatte/bearing its cross in silence and your last five lines hold hope. 110 degrees-yikes! Is that when you go back to California?
ooooh, these lines, “like a squatter
bearing its cross in silence”
Love those…especially in lent.
You add whispered prayer and draped and you’ve got a good meditation going on here. I just want to be there to feel the heat and the hope all together.
That whispered prayer for withered seeds–wow. This is gorgeous, Patricia.
Your poem and photo stirs mixed emotions in me, Patricia. I simultaneously miss the desert* (the beauty!) and don’t miss the desert (the heat!). I’m glad you find refuge during the summer in the mountains of CA. *we lived in Tucson for 7 years
Such beautiful images in your poem, Patricia! You’ve given me a new vision of spring on the desert stage. Love your expression of hope.
Lovely poem and photo, Patricia. I love the sounds of so many of your words: squatter, bracts, bearing a cross in silence.. whispered prayer for withered seeds, etc. Thank you for sharing, and I wish you a spring that might linger a little longer.
Well, as you know, I love this whole poem, but I really love the title. 🙂
I loved these lines most of all:
“a whispered prayer for withered seeds
left behind”
– sad yet hopeful, too. 🙂
Thank you for sharing. I especially adored the photograph you shared of the birds as well. 🙂
I do not even know how I ended up here but I thought this post was great I dont know who you are but definitely youre going to a famous blogger if you arent already Cheers.
Patricia, I love your poem with all its images. 110! I would melt like an ice cube. I came up to 60 today and should be 60 tomorrow with blue sky and sun. Love those purple, pink, and white wildflowers in your pic. Today, I saw yellowish buds on my forsythia bush. Hopefully, those yellow four petal, star-like flowers will pop open soon spreading light.
I love how you start your poem off with the 110 degree spring, which hooks readers and “dissolved into a scrubby, barren hillside last year” to “bearing its cross in silence / a whispered prayer for withered seeds” to the positive and bright flowers and fields “today fields blur in emergent green / sweet acacia sports yellow pompoms /shorn bracts of bougainvillea, katie-ruellia” that bring light and joy. My favorite images that I clearly see are “fields blur in emergent green” and “sweet acaia sports yellow pompoms.” I love “draped with hope” that spring will linger longer.
That is always my hope, too even though our summers only sometimes get as hot and humid as 90-95 degrees. But breathing in muggy 90-97 can feel like 100 degrees or over that, especially for me who has asthma and can’t breathe in that heat. Many years ago, the one time I visited a friend in Arizona, it went up to 100 degrees! It was difficult for me to breathe in that hot dry air, too. I felt like I was sticking my head in an oven. I did take a morning ride on a small horse with a tween for a guide, in your beautiful desert. Thank you for sharing.
“Draped with hope” — beautiful! And that photo is gorgeous too.