Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Sonja LivingstonMarch 01, 2022

How to make sense of magnolia
branches clacking against glass?
My eyes study the budding limbs
as diners make small talk,
the clink of ice, every glass refilled
once then twice, it’s the first of March,
something tender unfolds from tree bark,
as the world goes on with its business
and the first of the snow comes.

David of Glyn Rhosyn, patron saint
of the Welsh, the Celts sometimes pin
spring bulbs to their jackets on David’s Day.
My bulbs are pinned to a grocery cart
jostled by potatoes, cheddar and bottled stout
scanned by the checkout girl who asks,
What you gone do with these leeks?

Often depicted with a dove
perched on his shoulder, David was better
known as Dewi, protector of vegetarians,
poets and all of Pembrokeshire,
Gwnewch y pethau bychain
mewn bywyd
—said David as he died.
Do the little things in life.

Soup, I tell the cashier and later split
the shank sideways and rinse bits of dark earth
from under green flaps—there’s a scent
that comes from cut leeks, like daffodils
and wild onions, like spring pushing up from winter—
which brings to mind the magnolia,
a thousand pink buds headed toward something
that can’t be turned back, no matter the spell
of unexpected weather.

The latest from america

A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, by J.D. Long García
J.D. Long GarcíaApril 30, 2025
A Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter, by Terrance Klein
Terrance KleinApril 30, 2025
In a pre-conclave meeting, an Italian cardinal, and backer of Cardinal Parolin as next pope, attacked Pope Francis for opening positions of responsibility in the church to men and women not in holy orders.
Gerard O’ConnellApril 30, 2025
Michael B. Jordan, left, in “Sinners” (Warner Brothers)
As the film’s title promises, there is plenty of sin on display, even before the vampires arrive.
John DoughertyApril 30, 2025