Gia Civerolo

SPRING & HER AWAKENING MEMORIES

Purple lavender lilacs belonging

to her neighbor’s tree

draped over a pale green

childhood wall even paler

and greener between winter

and spring. Decades later, still her

favorite color, favorite flower, favorite smell,

favorite sensory memory

 

Petunias bright pinks, whites, yellows

against the red brick of her childhood

split level home, where her mother still lives

Generations of little hands rummaging for

Easter eggs, the same colors, as the flowers growing

along with bright plastic eggs

and bunny shaped chocolates inside

 

Sweet Peas, her birth month’s flower,

springing throughout the garden

Ultraviolet blues, fuchsias bright pinks

Deep red lines, veins in the center

Mini orchids or real-life versions

of close-up flower paintings

 by Georgia O’Keefe

 

Irises standing tall guarding spring

Deep colors with a splash

of yellow, white, purple, violet-red

Breaking up the same color monotony

They remind her always of her

grandmother’s dirt-colored hands

happiest, busiest in the ground

Nails always pristinely clean

when it came time to cook dinner

Goddess Iris bridging over to

rainbow colors of tulips

whirling windmills of spring possibilities

and fields and fields and fields

of yellow daffodils with

California wildflowers, carpeting the Earth’s walls

along the black coast highway

 

Her memory awaking after being

dormant in the shadow snow

 

She is bursting colors bright with spring flowers

 

Then whispers of a cold breeze

makes her sad for a moment, memory awakening

Remembering bursting colors bright with spring flowers

Their only grave sin, is they die much too young

Before the heat of the summer

Purple Tulip Haiku 

Purple tulips in

the vase, paints Spring for Winter’s

buried memory.

 

 

FALL FORGOT ABOUT SPRING 

 

The flirting of spring

blooming into surprise summer love 

Considering It was meant

as a “meet cute” one night stand

 

They got stronger, louder

Everyday 4^th of July

Exploding love. Bang! 

 

But it was in the quietness

when it felt most real

 

The summer clinging

to their tan bodies 

Sparking kisses

glistening in the sun

Dripping down merging

into hot blockbusters bursting

numbered summer days

 

The summer heat dissipates

into the crispness of fall

Bringing the end to it all

 

She didn’t remember surrendering 

Leaves falling into 

winter’s snow globe blurring 

all the promises made

 

Memory refrains 

Popsicles purple puddles

she can’t seem to get clean

no matter how many times she scrubs

 

Ice cream truck’s music jolts her heart

Parades of kids racing towards a future of

First Spring kisses