It's the day
before or the day of or some days after
the vernal equinox. There's a name for
this day that someone told me in car
driving away from the sunshine on
Stephen's Coyote Ridge. But I don't recall
that name. Here in the Okanagan Valley,
parking lots are still scabbed with sand
and ice. The hills have a kind of
psoriasis of snow. But for all the umber
and buff, the red moss occupying that
retaining wall in Scenic Canyon remembers
the red in the Ponderosa pine. Yesterday
we saw a Ponderosa whose needles had
fallen and its branches curled into itself
like arthritic fingers. Turns out you can
blame it on the moss. The phlegm of ice in
the spring marsh. Whatever you want. Blame
it on
the three poems and
a story we bring
you to go along with all the new light.
Matt
Rader is a
Contributing Editor of Forget
.
