balance?

 Vernal Equinox, ‘21

metaphysically, this day should be of balance,

halfway through the lightening year,

hours of dark and light, equal,

though they mix for an hour before dawn

and for an hour at dusk,

here in the Southeast, after a cold February,

most trees are still winter-grey,

most plants hesitant,

the grass hasn’t grown enough to cut since November,

color comes to the yard 

from what we’ve worked and planted:

crocus, daffodils, hyacinth,

periwinkle, flowering quince,

the Lenten rose, January jasmine,

in the garden I’ve rushed the growing season,

since I have missed Persephone,

so lettuce has sprouted, 

sugar snap peas broken 3 inches into the air,

potatoes in the ground at the dark of the Moon in March,

summer tomatoes and tomatillos started inside,

we can be creatures of light

who warn the dark we’re coming

as the edge of night starts to fall away

and the day works to break,

the school year stumbles toward the end

as calendar, pandemic realities, and depleted energy reservoirs

cannot quite grasp the reality 

Earth and Sun celebrate as the seasons change,

college and professional sports also stumble forward,

and seek to re-find balance,

much of who we are

steps on the others’s toes,

while we want to dance like 

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,

to make a whole with two equal parts,

despite the challenge of who leads,

balance is found more easily in the abstract

than in the lots cast by the universe into our days. 

by Henry H. Walker

March 20, ‘21