Yellow daffodils dance to the musical winds.
A blanket of violets offers a message of love.
Flowering Indian paints don the red of valor.
The bluebells are just for you and me,
The rest to renew the world for all.
Lightning strikes the ink-black sky.
A thunderclap opens the clouds to rain,
Teardrops trickle down across the face.
March winds sprinkle the fresh green grass
With blossoms from dogwood, apple and peach.
The air is filled by sweet singing trills
From robin, lark and bluebirds nesting near.
All the world seems now awake with love
As springtime comes to fill hill and dale.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR MAY 2022
Another Life, a Second Soul?
She was certain, my mother,
That in some other life
With another soul,
Her voice sang out
In the firelight,
In the lantern, torch-lit spaces
Where music swelled,
Where melodious Spanish
Encircled the Gypsies’ Romany.
There, the rhythms
Of her feet, her graceful arms,
The flick of her skirt
Held enthralled all who saw
And heard.They were the witnesses
Of her other soul.
She was certain, my mother,
She had once been a Gypsy in Spain.
AH, MARY OF THE LAND OF THE SOUTHERN SUN
Do you sorrow?
Sculpted straight
Strong
With stone veil
a blue shield
about flawless countenance
lowered eyes
and perpetual smile.
Ah, lonely mother
Upon whom the light has fallen
To cast a shadow on the son.
Do you sorrow?
AWAKE, IT’S SPRING
Yellow daffodils dance to the musical winds.
A blanket of violets offers a message of love.
Flowering Indian paints don the red of valor.
The bluebells are just for you and me,
The rest to renew the world for all.
Lightning strikes the ink-black sky.
A thunderclap opens the clouds to rain,
Teardrops trickle down across the face.
March winds sprinkle the fresh green grass
With blossoms from dogwood, apple and peach.
The air is filled by sweet singing trills
From robin, lark and bluebirds nesting near.
All the world seems now awake with love
As springtime comes to fill hill and dale.
AUTHOR NOTES
GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby
The poem “AH, MARY OF THE LAND OF THE SOUTHERN SUN” was written for the Pan American Festival held annually in a California city. It is included for the Cinco de Mayo festival on May 5.
REFRACTIONS—a poem by Robert Roxby
“AWAKE, IT’S SPRING” describes a day in the hills of West Virginia in 1929. It first appeared in his collection, Reflections on a Lifetime.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“ANOTHER LIFE, ANOTHER SOUL?” is another poem written for Mother’s Day and to accompany the poem by Margaret Roxby appearing this week.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR MAY 2022
THE LIE
It is a strange, sad quirk
of human nature
that we must pick at a wound
to see if it still bleeds,
As though fresh blood
will prove that it is not over,
really over.
So, we inflict
wound upon wound
hurting ourselves again and again—
Pretending to be tempering
a stoic core
which pain can never again sear.
While in reality we cry:
I bleed! See? It is not over
(Please, it can’t be over),
Not…really…over.
#Depression #Delusion #Self-torture #Suffering
THE HUNGRY HILLS
For Phillippa Berlyn
(Upon reading “Hills of Inyanga,” POET Magazine, 1967)
From over the mountains
Of a far-off land
Hills of Inyanga call
Across the world,
Beyond the seas,
The hungry hills call to me,
Their mysteries borne
Through the night
And fog of distance
Between the sound of the horn
And the light of the beacon
#Phillippa Berlyn #Inyanga #POETMagazine