One Cup for Turning by Lou Davies James

Draw me water sweet from out the well
when winter storms replenish all we know.
Long before the trees with blossom swell
the ice-bound season gifts the world with snow.

Snow that saturates the thirsting ground
as aquifers imbibe and drink their fill,
unleashed toward the sea where they are bound
when spring unties the thread of winter’s chill.

Chill that painted roses on your face
in March now slips away but still the blush
remaining as your fingers shake, unlace
the garments April sheds in such a rush.

Rush toward summer’s arms when ours are old
and frigid winds of change are fresh with cold.

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Lou Davies James grew up on the beaches of Eastern Long Island and currently lives in North East Florida with her husband Wes and far too many cats. She is the author of one full length volume of poetry, Adrift in the Holy, and two chapbooks; Drawn as Ever and Internal Insomnia. She has been published in Victorian Violet Press, Wilderness Interface Zone and JBStillwater.

*Competition entry*

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Priestess of the Garden by Karen Kelsay

For fifteen years this lemon tree has bloomed
And offered up her fruit; our little maiden
Who sweeps the walk, housekeeper of the soil.
Her headdress in the wintertime is laden

With branches that bear golden offerings.
She’s our enchanted one, with perfect limbs
Producing flowers in the springtime. Her
Exquisite emerald leaves evoke soft hymns

From sparrows on the trellis. Daughter, bound
Into a pebbled, earthy ground, reviving
Our senses with a holy, hidden fire.
Secluded shrine of shade €” somehow, deriving

All glory from the sky. Sweet priestess, gowned
And birthed in rites where songs of life are crowned.

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Karen Kelsay is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of five chapbooks. Her latest book, Dove on a Church Bench, will be published next year by Punkin House Press.   She is the editor of Victorian Violet Press, an online poetry magazine, and lives in Orange County, California, with her British husband and two cats.   Karen was February’s featured artist in The New Formalist. See her work here.

Karen’s poem “Waiting for Spring” won last year’s Spring Poetry Runoff’s Most Popular Vote Award.   She has published several poems on WIZ. To see more of her poetry on WIZ, search on her name using the search box lower left in the sidebar.

*non-contest submission*

Ode to Spring Sunrise

by Jim Cobabe

The hour of dawn my rest I broke too soon,
too soon the ever faithful sunrise failed.
Stormy weather ruled this day ’til noon,
though on other daybreaks sunny hope I hailed.

Through long and dreary winter days I bide,
and though I long to sleep in bed, depressed
beneath warm flood of down I seek to hide,
duty to my job remains impressed.

The daffodils, their blooms all blasted bleak,
the freezing from their color wresting joy.
Unheard the trickle of the sun-warmed creek,
the plaything of dark morning’s little toy.

In unrequited love I wait, so chaste, so true,
standing vigil oh so hopeless! oh so blue!