Woodland in Spring by Annie Louvaine

Under the hawthorn tree, white blossoms drift like snowflakes

as sunlight throws its radiance through gnarled and leafless

oak and ash and falls as a mosaic of shade and white.

Patches of bluebells catch and hold that light.

Rocks exhibit their lichens like artists in a modern gallery

and crenulated blades of ferns rise from a wet and mossy ground.

I stop and sit and listen for a while to the tinkling

of the stream, the wood warblers, the multilingual wind

the spill of the distant waterfall and think of my Nain.

She wore a soft blue cardigan, two braids curled round

upon her head, an auburn crown; she sang the Gymanfa ganu.

Then up I stand and walk again along that single path

a path that’s taken me back to the one who loved me best.