Poem of the Day: “Spring Dream” by Melinda Coppola

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present “Spring Dream” by Melinda Coppola.  Coppola has been a writer in some form for four and a half decades. Her work has been published in several magazines, books, and periodicals including: Harpur Palate, Kaleidoscope, The Autism Perspective, Spirit First, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Welcome Home, and Celebrations. She is also an artist, Yoga teacher, Reiki Master, singer, cook, and beach stone collector who enjoys infusing her work of heart with her voice as a poet.

Spring Dream

Melinda Coppola

The first day of March you bring me a calendar in bed,

present it delicately, expectantly,

like a very fragile gift.

Outside the snow,

blanketing, blanketing, and I form the words

thank you and yes indeed and

it won't be long now but

what comes out instead surprises

both of us, and even the calendar

seems to tremble in my hands as some voice,

perhaps mine, rasps If there's a crocus to be found under

all of that we'd surely hear it screaming

and then there is screaming,

and the calendar turns to ice in my lap, and

the blankets turn to snow

and in one moment all my cells become botanical

and I shrink, draw in, and then

the frozen earth below me yields

and I push off against a tree root

and, reaching through the white blankets

I rise triumphant, wake to see your face

beside me on the pillow, oblivious

to the arrival of spring.

Poet's notes:  My poems often spring from visuals that flash through my mind. Sometimes they look like those early, silent movies, with choppy scenes and odd sequencing. Other times they come as a collage of images. The inspiration for “Spring Dream” was a hybrid, a movie in my subconscious and a scattering of backlit images behind my closed eyelids. It all arrived at dawn on the weary side of winter when we New Englanders are starved for any sign of spring.

Editor’s Note:  I enjoy the dream logic in this one.  The transformation of the speaker into the crocus is evocative of Ovid.  The touch of a love poem at the end is moving.