National Poetry Month continues in April

To celebrate National Poetry Month this year, James Blevins, the Gazette’s in-house reporter and poet—who has seen his work previously published in “Salt Hill Journal,” “Pretty Owl Poetry,” “Stoneboat Journal,” “Mud Season Review” and “AZURE,” as well as numerous other outlets both online and in print—has elected to pick five poems for publication, one for each Friday in April, concluding with a poem of his own on April 29.

The Spring Has Many Silences

By Laura Riding Jackson

The spring has many sounds:

Roller skates grind the pavement to noisy dust.

Birds chop the still air into small melodies.

The wind forgets to be the weather for a time

And whispers old advice for summer.

The sea stretches itself

And gently creaks and cracks its bones….

The spring has many silences:

Buds are mysteriously unbound

With a discreet significance,

And buds say nothing.

There are things that even the wind will not betray.

Earth puts her finger to her lips

And muffles there her quiet, quick activity….

Do not wonder at me

That I am hushed

This April night beside you.

The spring has many silences.

Laura Riding Jackson, born on January 16, 1901, in New York City, was a poet, essayist, novelist, short story writer and critic. She was the author of many titles, including “The Close Chaplet” (Hogarth Press, 1926) and “The Telling” (Athlone Press, 1972). She died on September 2, 1991.