At last

April has arrived and we can open windows,
breathe in grass-green scent and offer our skin
to the sun. Daily walks are more comfortable,
less chance of slipping; still we go slowly, hand
in hand, step to step, grinning at yellow faces
of daffodils and primroses frilling up the verges.
The piebald horse is at the top of the paddock.
He shoves his head over the five bar gate for us
to stroke, firm and steady, just the way he likes it.
There is birdsong, a fresh breeze, an encouraging
blue sky, the heat we’ve longed for all winter,
and leaves and blossom unfurling all around us.

Kim M. Russell, 3rd April 2025

It’s Thursday and at the dVerse Poets Pub we are Meeting the Bar with Laura, who is ‘open to question’.  She says that after her last MTB prompt looking into the meaning of names, she did some research and discovered that April most likely derives from the Latin name Aprilis from the verb aperire, ‘to open’. She tells us that Emily Wakefield’s prose poem ‘April’ taps into this sense of an initial blossoming, which can be seen in the extract Laura shared. I also like very much the poem by Jonathon Well, ‘April Morning’.

Laura says that, for some of us, agonies are in the very form of poetry, the Closed Poetry Form of rhymes in a set scheme, syllabic counts, the meter of stressed and unstressed syllables etc.

Our challenge is to write in the Open Poetry Form, otherwise known as Free Verse or Vers Libre. Our poems can include any of poetry’s characteristics but without any consistent regularity: rhyme (inner, end), meter, repetition, alliteration, assonance, imagery, symbolism and metaphor. We should give our poems structure, which inevitably lies within its musicality and cadence, akin to the conversational. The topic is a free choice but suggestions include April, open and love.

28 thoughts on “At last”

  6. I love the last 3 lines:

    There is birdsong, a fresh breeze, an encouraging
    blue sky, the heat we’ve longed for all winter,
    and leaves and blossom unfurling all around us.

    I could use all of that now! We’re wobbling between rain and snow. Spring feels very far away.

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  8. Your poetry is always peaceful to my weary soul. I hope daffodils show up here soon it is still very gray and drab.

    grinning at yellow faces
    of daffodils and primroses

    Liked by 1 person

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