April is always full of poetry events. This year is no exception. I try to list all the ones involving Moon Pie Press poets on the website at http://www.moonpiepress.com. Here is a lovely poem about what sustains some of us through a long winter. It is by former Portland Poet Laureate Bruce Spang, whose latest book from Moon Pie Press is BOY AT THE SCREEN DOOR.
THE COLOR OF FAITH
Minus fifteen degrees, even the thermometer on the deck
recoils under its lid. Like a man with a Bible in a bombed out building,
I unearth a Johnny’s Selected Seed catalog
in the mail. Fields of Allstar Gourmet Lettuce,
mottled rows of purple and green, spread
beneath bare feet of a girl who slices one head
after another like the Queen in Wonderland.
I twist the space heater dial to high and flip
to Amaranthus, with its ropes of deep red,
fold the page; find a new Echinacea, Pallida
with long slender purple petals, fold it.
Colors splash on my lap, yellow tomatoes,
blue aster, pink poppies, and on page
sixty-eight, skins of peppers glistening
as brightly as the snow did this afternoon,
yet sliced open like hearts. Look, there is
Joe Pye Weed that releases a vanilla scent.
Smell it. Write it. Fill in the order form.
freshmoonpie 