Three Poems from Linda M. Crate

spring's arrival

spring has burst open
with all her flowers:
daffodils, tulips,
flowering trees including
the magnolia
pinwheel phlox,
and many others arm the earth

winter faded the crocus
song long before
their time
should've been over,
but now spring has the upperhand
disarming winter
with all her flaming hands;

the sun is no longer
content
to play hide-and-seek
with the clouds
old man winter cannot creep in
destroying our dreams
any longer
he has been put to death.



no more snow

bumble bees
the size of my pinky
buzz
around the dandelions
i feel a peace
that winter is gone
sometimes sadness lingers,
but the seasonal depression
is gone;
flowers are good at making
me forget my sorrows
so is the creek
washing away all the ugly things
in me that keep me
up at night--
as i get caught up in the fragrance
of spring
summer is treading lightly
i know her song will be here, soon,
but as i was born of her flames
she means me no harm;
i smile thinking of all the lovely things
that will crest like ocean waves
where winter snow cannot pull me into
long white sad silence.



daughter of the flames

i have met
so many
thorns of winter

that thought their
cold and snow
would kill me,

but i've endured
showing them
my summer flames;

no will will hold me
back from the whispers
of my dreams

i will catch them all
and my roses have thorns, too,
they shall cut the coldness

until it stings my flesh
no longer
until winter realizes

he has no power
over my pretty little red heart
and stops chasing me--

i am a song of white suns
the lyric of golden moons
daughter of the flames.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville.  Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print.  She has five published chapbooks:  A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press -- June 2013), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon -- January 2014), If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016), My Wings Were Made to Fly (Flutter Press, September 2017), and splintered with terror (Scars Publications, January, 2018).