September 29, 2011

It’s always great to get to know a poet whose work you have not read before.  This week I would like to feature Jerry Johnson, a Vermont poet whom I just had the pleasure of meeting.  He was professor at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts where he was a finalist for the Dr. Vincent J. Mara Award for Excellence in College Teaching. Jerry lives on a farm in a section of Vermont called the Northeast Kingdom. The stimulus for much of his poetry stems from the natural beauty of this locale.   Cycles Outside my window, crazed with indiscriminate patterns of ice,      a red squirrel sits on silent haunches      in prayerful fashion –      a cloistered monk sworn to silence. His ashen tummy is exposed like the white belly      of snow which surrounds him      as he contemplates a sunflower seed clenched tightly in his hands. Perhaps he is wondering which end to open. Chickadees and jays pay him no mind      and offer no assistance on the art of seed shucking. My calendar attached to the wall      says winter came yesterday.      They actually give it a date, December 21. Winter Solstice is written there. What was yesterday?  It could not have been fall.      Leaves have long been gone.      Temperatures have long been plummeting. Snow has been piling up way before the twenty-first. Winter started many days ago. It doesn’t have a date. Spring will come when she decides,      after winter does her thing.      Could be in April but who’s to say?       There is no rhyme or reason to this season stuff. But when she comes, we’ll welcome her.      Bare swatches of brown      erratically assemble in the meadow. The first swallow starts his artful dodges among the budding branches of a maple. Mountain brooks and valley streams      gorge themselves with melting run-off. Crimson blossoms open on apple trees. Does give birth to fawns. It’s mud season to some      as the frost gives up its stiffness      and succumbs to a softer, gooey state. With gaping mouth the earth breathes again, free from winter’s icy grip. The rains come,       some gently, some with rage,      defying gravity, taking a horizontal approach to earth. The barren land is replenished with its liquid life-force. Spring surrenders as summer comes,      again no date –      her warmth signals her arrival. That splendid warmth nourishes the earth and livens the soul. Buds are metamorphosed into leaves      like pupae into winged butterflies. Bluebirds return      to reclaim their rustic bird-homes. The meadow is resurrected with a freshly painted mantle      of jade green and emerald. Like dots on a connect-a-dot puzzle,      dandelions spring up to absorb the sun. Summer lingers in her tender, lazy way, then calls it quits. Fall says it’s her turn. Apples reach their peak      of color and delectability, then sporadically descend to the ground as the first frost appears. Autumn brings with her       a mounting attack on trees, rendering a furious conflagration of color . Each tree seems to say – Why haven’t you noticed me before? You didn’t worship me enough when my crown was green. Now I blush in shades of red, burnt umber, and orange. Fortunate are you, though, I shall return in my salubrious verdant glory. Fall hangs on much too briefly.      Trees give up their vibrant coronets.      The heads of dandelions turn white like the snow and are blown away. Winter comes again and outside my window, crazed with indiscriminate patterns of ice,      the red squirrel retakes his monk-like stance, contemplating a sunflower seed held gently in his hands.                         Jerry Johnson             Creek Road Poet             www.vtpoet.com From: A Bed of Leaves