We’re strangers spring winds and I,
The emerald silk of spring days soon upon us…
Billow and froth, the newly replenished stream waters:
Precious crystal rivers flow, song across a waiting land,
Last ice storms…
Trees new bended spring leaf jade and bough
Moss, mists, gauzy feathers downstream
Midst new chiselled quartz, onyx boulder
Fog, ghosts wending through a lavender earth;
Spring fragrance, wet soil, leaf bronze
And all the fall detritus from a season of losses…
The majesty, the art of wild nature to inspire,
The meditation, the hope, the wonder,
Eternal cycles, season to season
Spring memorials to a delicate inheritance
Gentle season to gentle season…
We are approaching the time of ascension;
The spring jade moon overhead…
Dew soft meadow, far glow field, emerald jewel countryside
And bended shadow, call of the crow riding the spring breezes high above
Spring stars in far distant universes above
All the joy, all the beauty of a world in renewal
Soon we will find ourselves in a world of wildflower confusion,
Early dawn mists and all the glory of a new season.
Bev Gorbet is a Toronto poet and retired school teacher. She has published several poems with the Retired Teachers Organization and most recently in “Literary Connection IV: Then and Now” (In Our Words Inc., 2019), edited by Cheryl Antao Xavier.
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
The Meaning of Water 