BY RUTH MOTA

How many more springs will unfold like this?

Daffodils explode to golden stars.

In the planter, beets lift scarlet arms and

chorus lines of lettuce unfurl their skirts.

I watch untamed oxalis flail before the prim narcissus

and a chickadee wing up diamonds in her bath.

A scrub jay eyes me from an apple branch

before his brazen dive to steal an almond from my palm.

But I can’t see a bee, and it isn’t really spring.

February breaks in beauty but the breeze portends.

From the coast below, frothy tongues lick up our shore.

From the hills beyond, tanoak moans against madrone.

What news is penned by dark wings rising from the east -

specks that gyrate, barely visible against the sun?

Ruth Mota lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California where she writes verse and sometimes leads poetry circles in the community to veterans and men in jail. Her poems have been published in various online and print journals including: Terrapin Books, Passager Books and Black Mountain Press.

Process Note: A year ago in February I was writing with my poetry group in my friend Juanita's Santa Cruz garden. I began by describing its sparkling beauty and my delight that a bird would descend to eat from my proffered hand. Then the fragility of this spring scene overcame me when I thought of the rising water on our local beach, the ripeness for fire of my home in the nearby forest and what this newly arrived virus might mean for all of us.