Spring Epiphany

John Edwards is Poet Laureate for the Lady Smith Arts Council on Vancouver Island. Every fortnight, John publishes new poems with a sketch or acrylic painting to accompany them. His latest collection, "A Farm For All Seasons" is currently available at the Lady Smith Gallery, Salamander Books, and Volume 1 Books in Duncan – all on Vancouver Island. He is planning to publish another book of poems and art this summer. John has also completed translation works from Latin and Greek poets, including The Roman Cookery Of Apicius!

Before this poem is bereft of words
To paint spring’s sights and sounds
And my eyes no more can tell
Where creation starts or ends
There’s a brave new world again to spell...

How timid daffodils hide their yellow smiles
In hopeful veils of green
To pray barn-swallows safe flight home
From California to begin

Or slow labour of water-lillies
From darkness of our lake to rise
After a serenade of frogs a symphony
Made the moonlit night into a surprise
And now the March Heron on his favourite willow
Stands like a brooding priest over his domain
A feathered gown almost to his feet
To pronounce his silent reign

How nettles not yet for stings despised
Of all harvests first to taste
Have braved again the fleeting frost to make
As morning snow like diamonds melting
Lies on firs’ outstretched hands
While an Easter procession
Decorates the moss below

And when a pair of nesting Canada geese raise balletic necks
To watch the resident herd of Roosevelt elk
Who stride across the morning shallows
They thought to own was only theirs
On hind legs two juveniles
Start to prance and dance
As human adolescents do
And a massive bull his sea of antlers shakes
With what to me looks something like delight