April’s Last Light (A Seasonal Meditation in Verse) April ends not with a thunder, but with a breath drawn long— a hush between the lilac’s bloom and summer’s crowning song. The dogwoods whisper white goodbyes, their petals like soft rain. The orchard sighs in blushing pink, then greens itself again. Beneath the trees, the garden stirs as shoots break through the loam, small exiles from the dark below who’ve clawed their way toward home. The bees have not yet fully come— just scouts in looping flight, who flirt with dandelion gold before the fall of night. The frogs begin their evening psalms in puddles rimmed with mud, and lovers hide by willow trunks to trade the first small blood. The barn still smells of winter hay but open doors let in the scent of rain, the breath of fields, the musk of greening skin. Each fencepost casts a longer shadow, each boot sinks soft in sod. The moon, not full, but brave enough to rise where others nod. A boy walks barefoot through the rye— a girl with fire in hand burns last year’s stubble into ash to feed the waiting land. And oh, the geese—those vagrant prayers— still cry as if unsure that this is home, or something like it, neither wild nor pure. By river bend, the sycamores shed bark like second skin. The water runs with melting snow, and secrets deep within. The stars come late. The stars come soft. The stars arrive alone. And crickets try out summer’s tune in half-forgotten tone. Here ends the reign of April's light, a reign of lace and thaw. She bows to May’s more sumptuous kiss— half tremble and half law. And in the soil, still barely warm, the future starts to swell. It pulses under boot and branch— and does not need to tell.