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  • Writer's pictureShana Ritter

And now it is Spring

The green has gone from tender to brilliant, so many shades of it I could not begin to name them. But the trees, the may apples, the planted seedlings, the budding iris and burgeoning peony are all vibrant with color.


It was a long winter and it’s been a slow unfolding spring. I have never seen the dogwoods so full of flowers and for so long, simple delicate ivory blooms, dapplings of light amongst the greening.


Pandemic time continues to stretch itself in ways I cannot count or measure. Months feel both like days and years. The hours in the day go by so quickly even as the day itself lingers in the now long light of May. I find it hard to delve wholeheartedly into tasks or projects. I start one thing and go on to another, circle back around and carry it a bit further but completion or even a projection to finish remains elusive.


But April, because it was poetry month, was a gift. A prompt each day beckoned a response. The poem didn’t need to be polished, didn’t need to be redrafted or revised just written. I found I would read the prompt in the morning and let it wade around in the back of my mind for much of the day and then in just a short time I’d write it and then post it up to a page a group of shared. Each day I’d read their poems and respond by giving a line from the poem back, and others would do the same. So, it felt like a conversation, a holding, a quiet way of listening and being listened to. And at the end of thirty days, thirty possibilities. Many of the poems will just stay as they are, a small capture of time, but some of them I’ll return to and revise. A few may even make it into a magazine or a manuscript. None were written with that purpose, it was all about practice.

And I guess, isn’t it all about practice? Especially this last year, this year that has been for all of us like no year Before had been for any of us. I hope the practice will lead us to something we’ll want to save, something we’ll want to work more on, something that will warrant real revision.


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