The Wild City--A Poem for National Poetry Month in a pandemic

 by Linda Rodriguez

As we move beyond the one-year anniversary of our pandemic lockdown and the beginning of National Poetry Month, I'm posting a poem to remind us all that, even if we're isolated from our social circles, we have companions if we can get outside--even in large cities.

THE WILD CITY


Sprawling across the Kansas and Missouri
River confluence, network of tributaries
woven around bluffs and glaciated hills,
crow-blue in the distance but green, green
as the hearts of trees in the walking,
even today, Kansas City has still-wild parks,
large, well-treed lots, and wooded streams,
homes for foxes, wild turkey, deer, coyote,
interrupting traffic patterns with flight
paths of herons, hawks, and eagles,
a metropolis of small towns linked
by the scent of water and new growth.


Smaller rivers fill out the web
of water that holds the landscape
together, leaf veins feeding surfaces
of green—Blue River, Platte River,
Little Blue River, Little Platte River,
Marais des Cygnes River.
Creeks like Indian Creek, Brush Creek,
Line Creek, First Creek, Second Creek,
Shoal Creek, Willow Creek,
Mill Creek fan out, capillaries
for the breathing system that is the city.


Once, driving along the Little Blue,
I startled at the sudden appearance,
slow flap of huge white wings
banded with black, bright red cap
leading the way ahead of stretched-out
snake neck, legs trailing behind, a legend
rising next to me and taking flight,
whooping crane on migration,
resting and feeding a day or two
in the heart of the city.


When we humans go at last,
by bomb, virus, famine,
disaster, natural or otherwise,
the wild will reclaim Kansas City
in short order, never having completely
released its original hold.


(Published in Cutthroat, a Journal of the Arts, 2016)

National Poetry Month

By Shari Randall

Spring arrives slowly in New England, with frustrating fits and starts. There are usually a few unnaturally warm days in March when the optimistic splash through the melting snow in shorts and t-shirts. April’s saturated sunlight has me wondering if it’s time to put away the wool sweaters and bring out the cotton sweaters, pack away the grays and navy blues and bring out the pink and yellow. I've been fooled before.

Then Nature reminds us who’s in charge and it snows.

Still, the blue crocus push up through the dark earth and the forsythia isn’t far behind.

The forsythia always brings to mind these lines of poetry from

William Wordsworth’s “Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”:

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.

Does the change in season bring to mind any favorite poetry? April is National Poetry Month. Feel free to share a bit of your favorite poem in the comments. Happy spring!