Green Doors of Spring

 

Under a sky-blue ceiling,

I open the green doors of spring.

The first words to appear

are like veins extending

in newly born leaves;

expanding to capture sunlight.

I feel the sense of longing;

the desire to hold back time.

© 2025 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. Townsend Park - Kent County - Michigan

2. & 3. Home Woods - Cannonsburg, Michigan

Pleated Skirts

 

Get close enough

to the American Beech

in late April, so that

you can take its pulse,

and examine the

narrow, tapered buds,

sharp as a  pencil point,

and notice them swelling

until they unfold

their coppery sheaths,

to reveal young leaves;

soft, tender, and wearing

green pleated skirts.

© 2024 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. 2. 3. & 4. Home Woods - Cannonsburg, Michigan

Pleats

The greening

wrinkled pleats

of emerging leaves

are being smoothed out

by the slanted sleeves

of spring sunlight. 

© 2021 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

American Beech (Fagus Grandifolia) Home Woods - Cannonsburg, Michigan

giving birth

For months, 
the secret was held;
held firmly within 
its winter bud,
now unlocked by 
the keys of spring,
on this day in early May.

So much potential packed 
into the tip of a twig.

Giving birth to samaras;
winged seeds 
capable of flight,

giving birth to 
an infancy of leaves,
golden in the morning light,
eager to grow green 
and expand.

Life bursting from buds;
the secret is out:
the Creator
giving birth
to new creation.

© 2015 Richard Havenga

Photo Location:

Chief Hazy Cloud Park - Grand River - Ada, Michigan

Silver Maple - Acer saccharinum