(Note: I also posted this on Substack, and then it occurred to me I could post it here… so now I’ve posted this in both places.)

I don’t fancy myself a poet. Usually if I’m writing poetry, it’s something of a song or ballad for one of my fantasy stories (or sometimes, in the case of The Singing Coil, sci-fi). But every once in a while the inspiration strikes.

In this case, I blame/thank reading “Zen: In the Art of Writing” by Ray Bradbury.

So today I have a poem I wanted to share, drafted somewhat in the spur of the moment, but collected from little moments on walks and memories. A little bit revised, but maybe I’ll return later to do more revisions.

“Flight of Spring”

by Stephanie Flint

Let go, she said
Let go into the wind
Hold bright

Summer days, Autumn Nights
lead into dark, and then to the white
of all covered in snow where night is gray and sky is dusk
an ever light reflection.

Hold Hold
Hold to the faint whisper
rattling a single leaf
clinging to bare limbs

Will not let go.

Until there, brief, a stirring
gossamer dress

Now leaves scratch concrete as they bounce along
in the lion’s roar of winds
approaching in her fury
of being suppressed
so long

She is back!

Tolerates the ice floes, the sculptured piles of sand and ice,
once fluffs of delicate snowflakes made jaded and weary

But they say
she is coming.

She is here!

Let her go, dancing and whirling into summer
she will return.