Monday Poems: "In Perpetual Spring" -- by Amy Gerstler

Gardens are also good places
to sulk. You pass beds of
spiky voodoo lilies
and trip over the roots
of a sweet gum tree,
in search of medieval
plants whose leaves,
when they drop off
turn into birds
if they fall on land,
and colored carp if they
plop into water.


Suddenly the archetypal
human desire for peace
with every other species
wells up in you. The lion
and the lamb cuddling up.
The snake and the snail, kissing.
Even the prick of the thistle,
queen of the weeds, revives
your secret belief
in perpetual spring,
your faith that for every hurt
there is a leaf to cure it.


* * * * *


Amy Gerstler has been described by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the best poets in the nation." She has published multiple books of poetry and her collection Dearest Creature (2009) was named a New York Times notable book of the year. The above poem is found in her collection Bitter Angel (1990). 


Gerstler lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the Bennington Writing Seminars program and at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.