My images are more evocative of endings than of spring: the flowers know when it is April and time to push through snow, because they hear the sound of tennis at dusk. Not the sudden storm that freezes tulips in their beds, not gutters filling with rainwater, flooding roads, basements. What I discover each winter’s end is decaying leaves, remains of the fall. Each morning they seem strange and request memories, even visions: walking downhill, wet with sunshine and snowmelt, a girl runs the asphalt, legs pumping, breathing a mirage. A glimpse of her legs and she’s an old lover, now suddenly not my wife but my daughter, this girl, so far, I’ve never seen, in pink shorts, asking, Can I go, can I go dad?—sure, but where, exactly? Home is misty and constant, a lake with ducks and crumbs. She’s important, because she said yes, and now asks me questions about southbound birds: can I go? I’m worried, because I know if she leaves, we’ll wax and wane.
Isaac James Richards is an award-winning poet, essayist, and scholar of rhetoric. He has also taught classes in the BYU English Department, Honors Program, and School of Communications.