enter the exuberant show!

when April with its. . .

when April fitfully finds herself in the mountains,

light and warmth tussle with the cold

killing frost just a few degrees of separation away

from tender leaf and budding flower,

the sweet rain the new growth needs
so close to the snow

that would have none of April’s greening,

it’s then we love to come to the Smokies,

to return to favorite places,

particularly where cove hardwood forest

has had the time and resource

to prepare a celebration of life returning

for its half a year of exuberant show,



enter the heralds: the fringed phacelia and trillium

that overwhelm with their luxurious fecundity,

this year the blood root witnessed spring close to the equinox,

today ginger, geranium, iris, and showy orchis

own their parts of the stage,

supported by squirrel corn, bishop’s cap, 

violets, rue and wood anemone,

the streams are full and clear,

dropping hard and sure into a frothing white,

so like the snow and the early flowers,

summer is inherent in the day,

a day which also remembers how close winter can be.



by Henry H. Walker

April 7, ’17