“Handmaidens of Spring” by Karen Kelsay

Slowly, after evening has gathered her stars,
Daybreak quietly spreads over the meadowland.
Foxglove and larkspur rise like tranquil towers
Floating in the shadowy, purple dawn.
Briar patches, woven with dewy blackberries,
Hedge around crooked oaks where sparrows
Flit in the branches. Small clouds of palest pink,
Mushroom in the soft-born morning light,
And linger above the violet embroidered vales.
Soon, all the budding flowers, like dainty
Handmaidens of Spring, will line the fragrant
Pathways–just to kiss the feet of June.

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Karen Kelsay is a native Californian who grew up near the Pacific.   As a child, she spent most of her weekends on a boat. She has three children, two cats and extended family in England, where she loves to visit. Karen is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the editor of Victorian Violet Press, a poetry journal. Her poems have been widely published over the past few years, and some of her recent work has appeared in The Boston Literary Review, The New Formalist, The Christian Science Monitor and The Lyric. Her first book, Collected Poems, was finished in 2008.   Since then, she has authored two chapbooks, one published by Pudding House Press and the other by Flutter Press. “Handmaidens of Spring” was first published in Munyori Poetry Journal

*Contest entry*

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