“Lone, Green Wanderer” © Jury S. Judge

 

First Spring
          A Sestina

I’m watching, waiting for the shift to spring.
Outside, the puddles freeze to the new moss.
This newness is so solitary, mine
To name in silence, behind the window glass.
A thawing, blooming season that is withheld
I leave to buy a rabbit colored green-

with cheap plastic fur: rough, prickly, and green.
Convincing me of an unknown true spring.
Mythos of seasonal mystique upheld
By faux pastel eggs nested amongst moss,
silk tulips placed in colored glass,
and this fake rabbit, so safely mine.

I shelve it beside precious things of mine.
My roots are still young and bitter green.
A memory of home pressed behind glass,
Where the warm winters cooled into spring.
I peeled with an old shovel the soft moss
from underneath the muddy wall which held

up the shingled roof. My youth upheld
a fantasy of snow melting. I mine
those dreams, dig through the layered moss,
Grasp thickly into a knot of green-
My future struggles, strains and hopes to spring
through clotted dirt- a sheen of muddy glass

Snow that blocks the sun. The hammered glass
vase on my coffee table upholds
the same assumptions I place in cheap spring
decor: Belief in a life that’s all mine.
Absurdly wishing, planning for a green
front door, small children who pull the fresh moss

from stones around the pond. I rub the moss
and dirt from plump bare feet. For now the glass
Bowl is set amongst the greenery
To drape the shelves. Life remade, upheld.
By ancient screws. Mere models. All are mine-
holding. I’m waiting for a sign of spring.

I have endlessly has beheld
unbent devotion to this dream of mine.
I wish that Target sold early spring.

 

Vivian Walman-Randall is a writer and scholar from Southern California. She holds an MFA from Emerson College and a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is currently pursuing her PhD at Oklahoma State University. Her work can be read in the Santa Barbara Literary Journal, Yellow Arrow Journal, and Apricity Magazine. Vivian currently lives in Stillwater, Oklahoma with her partner and their standard poodle, Clover.

Jury S. Judge is an internationally published artist, writer, poet, and cartoonist. Her “Astronomy Comedy” cartoons were published in Lowell Observatory’s publication, The Lowell Observer. She was interviewed on the television news program, “NAZ Today” for her work as a cartoonist. Her artwork has been widely featured in over one hundred and fifty magazines, including the covers of, Blue Mesa Review, Elements Review, Glass Mountain, and Levitate. She has also been interviewed by Streetlight Magazine and The Antonym. The City of Flagstaff selected her art for a public art opportunity where her art was displayed on traffic signal cabinet boxes located at two different intersections. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BFA from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. In addition to art and photography, her passions include hiking and traveling to exciting, new destinations.