Paul Goldfinger. Deal Lake. 2021. Winter dissipates.
Early April Violet An ordinary shift in the chilly wind brings this seed to sprout amid braided debris, just above the high-water line on a beach, where the Nissequogue River enters the Sound. All one can see are five dusty blue petals on a slender stem, with no visible leaves to cushion them in such a punishing place, where the life of a being so small is gauged in days, and the thin light of early April is the only tenderness this flower will sense, exposed on a raft of dead grasses and reeds, bent by onshore gusts as the new moon ascends, when a spring tide floats the violet to sea.
REGINA CARTER: "Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most." From her album Rhythms of the Heart.