Page 3 - take_heart

TA K E H E A RT

A Conversation in Poetry

Edited by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2007 by Stuart Kestenbaum. Reprinted from Prayers & Run-on Sentences, Deerbrook Editions, 2007, by permission of Stuart Kestenbaum. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at 207-228-8263 or poetlaureate@mainewriters.org

As we say goodbye toApril, which is National PoetryMonth, it’s the perfect time to introduce Take Heart, my new column for Maine newspapers. Take Heart will feature one poem each week by a Maine poet. The column’s frst poem, by Stuart Kestenbaum of Deer Isle, urges us to join him in welcoming spring.

April Prayer

by Stuart Kestenbaum

Just before the green begins there is the hint of green a blush of color, and the red buds thicken the ends of the maple’s branches and everything is poised before the start of a new world, which is really the same world just moving forward from bud to fower to blossom to fruit

to harvest to sweet sleep, and the roots await the next signal, every signal every call a miracle and the switchboard is lighting up and the operators are standing by in the pledge drive we’ve all been listening to: Go make the call.