Leatha Kendrick

City Spring

These bare sticks ready to break
into flame, into billows,
clouds
                           brought down to paradise us
for a season. Cumulus pears shadow
streets again, and night�s
                                                      cold compress
flattens jonquils. We slide under the sun�s
acute eye toward her full face,
                                                      that slow-built
mandala of summer. Though afternoons pillow
bare arms, spring ground�s too cool
for lying down. Heady with gaudy odors,
sudden color
                                                     surely we�ll ascend
despite ourselves, along with blades of grass.
Our soles touch
                                                    earth�s faint echo
under feet of asphalt, through wheels
that never pause. Ah! April�
sulking lover,
                                                    faithful in our intemperate time.

— Leatha Kendrick, from Science in Your Own Back Yard (Larkspur Press, 2003)
Reprinted by permission of the author.

Leatha Kendrick is the author of three volumes of poetry, the most recent one, Second Opinion (David Roberts Books, 2008). She currently leads workshops in poetry and life writing at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, KY, and directs their reading series, New Books by Great Writers. Her poems and essays appear widely in journals and anthologies including Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia; The Kentucky Anthology�Two Hundred Years of Writing in the Bluegrass State; and I to I: Life Writing by Kentucky Feminists.

You can find a further sampling of Leatha’s work at this link.

Possibly related posts:

Joy Bale Boone Prize 2010

The Longest Short Story Ever Written in Lexington

Eclectic Living Room

The shape of a poem

Erin Keane to lead Community Workshop

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.