Spring has been a long time coming in the Northern Hemisphere, but it is finally here. Our contributors celebrate the changing of the seasons.

“Riparian Life” by John Zedolik accompanies Canadian geese back south with the spring warmth.

In “I Could Be Charlemagne,” David Sapp observes the power of natural forces.

With “What Home Garden,” photographer Keith Moul provides a close-up view of a rose.

What Home Garden by Keith Moul

Through the eye of an artist, the eye of a poet, we can find beauty everywhere, as this week’s contributors demonstrate.

“American Exceptional” by Llyn Clague serves as an ars poetica, finding inspiration all over America.

“Cleveland Haiku #384” and “Cleveland Haiku #385” by Michael Ceraolo encapsulate moments in the city where he lives.

“Always Assessing Size” by David Thornbrugh contemplates what animals notice about the world.

“Blue Loneliness,” “Distinct” and “Exile” by Fabrice Poussin capture unexpected beauty through photography.

Photographer’s statement 

In this photo, a female black swallowtail has just emerged from its chrysalis and is busy drying its wings on a plaster sculpture. The juxtaposition of the butterfly and the life-like hand is at once a haphazard connection and yet, it almost seems to evince a metaphysical allegory. 

My father sister and
I in the trees with
our hair blowing. My
sister as usual has
something in her
hands and grins in
a way no one could
say no to, dancing
in restaurants
until she pulls in
to herself at 19
like the turtles
she collects. But
here she’s the sweet
pouter, my father’s
pockets bulge with
things, the gum
he’ll give us in
the brown chair
later reading the
funnies. I’ve got
a little pot and
my arms are heavy,
my father touches
us both lightly
as if he’s not
sure we’re real

Coxa.
Trochanter.
Femur.
Tibia.
Tarsus…

and four of the five named segments
of mantis foreleg flare spines to pierce and grip
whatever crawls, flies or falls too near.
The foreleg segments hang – at rest –

half-reminiscent of a monk at prayer,
awkward exoskeletal sacramentals, broad and thick;
they hang from what, for me, would be shoulders
and, scissor-jointed twice,

taper to what seem frail twigs dangling astray but,
to hummingbird, beetle or honeybee too near, the tarsi
prove stilettos swifter than eyes, single or compound,
commonly track, and their small spurs rasp or grip as needed.

For the thousands of bees I’ve seen all my years,
none surprised me as much as the one yesterday,
pollen packs bulging on its rear thighs,
zigging from blossom face to blossom face,

always just ahead of my zoom lens,
always too quick for focus on the pistils, then aloft and
WHAM! – jerked out of its beeline for the hive.
Gingerly steps against rose canes

brought honeybee back into viewfinder.
Below pink petal-edge, among composite leaf greens,
zoom found and focused on honey bee,
visegripped between cozae and femurs of a tan mantis,

the bee-legs feebly a-flail, stinger useless against the chitinous plates
trapping its abdomen. Given a few thorns against my thighs,
zoom caught a dozen series of still frames of mantis at lunch,
its prayers answered, till the memory card filled.

Time came to sort views of mantis:
mantis mandibles taking honeybee head-on to head off;
mantis staring at the lens, gauging what threat might
interrupt the meal; mantis gripping remains of the abdomen.

Delete took the failures of macro setting.
From disk, still, come recurrent questions.
Of all these sliced seconds zoom caught, which best tell
on screen, on page, the lines, the colors, the focus of
the mechanics of hunger?