Early Easter
by Ryan Harper
In the March years, things emerge, set back—
bed of daffodils, stiff plane trees bare,
creaking as the carillon rings early.
Slow to raise, New York—sleep-eyed arcadians
like the shadow of a cloud in drift,
passing on the wind-strafed Hudson—faux
depth, a lighter mass than stops a passage,
lolling east, the weightless volume darkening
on the waters. Slate green, piqued, levant—
pallet altered, late, the waiting month
reels, loose at the mortise—slipping, creaking,
trembling as the wrested body stirs.
Ryan Harper is an Assistant Professor of the Practice at Fairfield University-Bellarmine in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The author of My Beloved Had a Vineyard, winner of the 2017 Prize Americana in poetry (Poetry Press of Press Americana, 2018), Ryan has had recent poems and essays in Portland Review, Third Wednesday, Thirteen Bridges, Paperbark, and elsewhere. Ryan is the creative arts editor of American Religion Journal.
