by Robert Armstrong
A panoply of sound
Rings,
Throughout the crisp
Spring air,
While birds shed their
Winter songs,
Singing dirges to the
Snow,
Flavors of new beginnings
Roll across my tongue,
While dark soil toils,
Between my thumbs,
Years of compressed flowers,
Decompose
To nourish,
A new year’s
Buds,
While trees dance like
Sprites,
Swaying to the rhythm
Of spring,
The constant thrum
Of earth,
Keeps pace with
My heart,
Rain drops down,
Like sheets in the wind,
Water reflecting
The light,
Like stars pooling,
In the darkest of
nights.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Armstrong is a writer from the Hudson Valley in upstate New York. A former bookseller, he’s been published in a local magazine, Artless & Naked as well as in Mocking Heart Review. A voracious reader of poetry since age eight, he’s influenced by Charles Bukowski, William Wantling, Randall Jarrell, Kim Addonizio, the Beats and Post-Modernists. He’s currently working on poetry chapbooks, short stories, and a fantasy novel.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Rachel Singel is an Associate Professor at the University of Louisville. She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia in 2009 and a Masters of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the University Iowa in 2013. Rachel has participated in residencies at the Penland School of Crafts, the Venice Printmaking Studio, Internazionale di Grafica Venezia, Art Print Residence in Barcelona, Spain, and Wharepuke Print Studio in New Zealand. She has studied non-toxic printmaking at the Grafisk Eksperimentarium studio in Andalusia and will be continuing her research at Proyecto´ace in Buenos Aires, Argentina in summer 2021. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and represented in private, public and museum collections.