The Arrival of Spring in Normandy, 2020, after David Hockney

Hey, it's April!--National Poetry Month--and I'd like to share with you some ekphrastic poems I wrote this past year.  I encountered prompts to write ekphrastic poems in more than one lit journal and workshop.  It seems ekphrastic poems are having a moment, I guess.  

You may be wondering what ekphrastic poems are.  Ekphrastic poems are written about works of art, most often visual art like paintings and sculpture, but they may be about a performance piece like dancing, acting, or film.  This poem muses on an entire collection of paintings that English artist David Hockney created on his iPad during the pandemic.  It was released as a book this past year.  



i

Spring needs no 
assistance or even
notice, it arrives
as it has for millennia.
First the light:
dawn earlier each morning;
sun lingering in the west
a few minutes later
each night. 

Then green buds appear
sharp as a bird’s beak
spreading like hives
on tender branches.

We noticed
or we didn’t
that year

locked down
masked
behind sealed glass

telecommuting
home schooling
perhaps alone, wiping
down cans of beans
boxes of macaroni
and breakfast cereal;
spreading envelopes and catalogs
outside, so the sun 
will kill the germs.

Horrified by daily death counts, 
scared, grieving, weeping

we wondered if 
this would change us
secretly hoped that 
this would change us.

Yet we are people
of the flickering screen
devoted 
to rumor and conspiracy,
titillated by fear.


And the virus spread
as viruses do,
dumbly, insentient
unaware
that killing its host
is a poor
evolutionary tactic.


ii

In Normandy
the artist created 
on an iPad
a representation
of spring:

green and green and green
dark like kale
yellowish like the feathers of finches
bluish like river water in sunlight

glorious blossoms 
blush pink, salmon pink, white
on pear, apple, and plum tree,
yellow dandelions dotting
the lawn, as pure
and assertive
as spring itself,

pushing forward
constantly
without purpose
or concern
merely the unconscious
insistence that
life redeems itself
over and over and over again

reflected here 
in this human attempt
to allow art
to refresh us

acknowledging the imperative
to give ourselves over 
to creation.