Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: Mud Season

Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

Alice Persons of Westbrook is the co-founder of Moon Pie Press, which lists books by a range of poets, both new and established. In today’s poem she muses about spring’s influence on the natural world, and on us.

Mud Season By Alice Persons

After a brutal Maine winter
the world dissolves
in weak sunshine and water:
Mud sucks at your shoes.
It’s impossible to keep the floors
or the dogs clean.
Peeling layers of clothes, you emerge
pale, root-like, a little dazed
by brighter light.
You haven’t looked at your legs
in months
and discover an alarming new geography
of veins and flaws.
Last year you scoffed at people
who got spray-tanned
but it’s starting to appeal.
Your only consolation is the company of others
who haven’t been to Nevis
or Boca Raton,
a pale army
of fellow radishes,
round onions,
long-underground tubers.

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Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2005 by Alice Persons. Reprinted from A Moxie and a Moon Pie: The Best of Moon Pie Press, Volume 1, Moon Pie Press, 2005, by permission of Alice Persons. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.