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Michael Ansara

SPRING MORNING, 2021

Chinese Landscape with Pink Plum Blossom Trees by Thomas Nordwest

All spring, winds
Strong as if to scour clean.
Forsythia and daffodils shout out
A brilliant yellow riot of remembrance.
A cardinal, puffed red, high in the oak
Sings an aria of sweet desire.
A bleeding heart has managed to shove
Its blossomed hearts through the dark
Center of our rock wall into a patch of sun.
Everywhere earth seeks to mend itself and we
Believe again that we will live forever.

 

About the writer:
Michael Ansara’s work has been published in Arrowsmith, The Broken Plate, Brushfire, Cognoscenti, Courtship of Winds, Ellipsis, Euphony Journal, Evening Street Review, Glint Literary Journal, Mid-American Review, Midwest Quarterly, Muddy River Poetry Review, Perceptions Magazine, Pine Hills Review, Ponder Review, Salamander, Web del Sol, Ibbetson Street, Passager Books, Pennsylvania English, The Phoenix, Potomac Review, Solstice, Visitant LitVox.com, and Wrath Bearing Tree. His first book, What Remains¸ was published in 2022 by Kelsay Books. He spent many years as an organizer and activist, having served as a regional organizer for Students for a Democratic Society and an executive director of Massachusetts Fair Share. He is the cofounder of MassPoetry and serves on the board of Tupelo Press. He studied writing at Lucie Brock-Broido’s Summer Workshop, Joan Houlihan’s online workshop, and the GrubStreet Master Memoir Class. Michael lives in Carlisle, MA, with his wife.

Image: Chinese Landscape with Pink Plum Blossom Trees by Thomas Nordwest (contemporary). Digital image in the style of watercolour created with MidJourney AI. 2022. By free license.

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