April Fist
April Fist by debgrant
I couldn’t put my finger on what I was feeling this morning. Then I read this poem by Ada Limon that included the line, “Fine, then I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist, I’ll take it all.”
That’s it. T.S. Eliot called April the cruelest month. Lots of suicides happen in April. Some people who have been wintered in their personal darkness don’t want to face another spring. Some people just don’t think that much. Some people find a way to keep living.
I won’t turn on the television today. It is my act of defiance. The trees and the grass around my home know that it is April. They are pumping their fists of what I call Impossible Green.
One day this fragile blue ball we all cling to will not see another spring. It will flame out from without or within. Until then, I will be the classic April Fool and raise my fist with colors and words to say…not today.
There are children marching for their lives. There are women suffocating. There are human beings building piles of human debris to climb to power. Enough.
This is my April Fist. It’s not pretty. It’s not world-changing. It is impossibly green - tender, still learning, vulnerable - but it is my defiant stand. I’m ready to unfurl my fist and find my spring again.
Peace,
debgrant