Poetry by Louisa Schnaithmann

​Dr. Matthias Ripp CC



Here, Have Some Optimism

The dogwoods are open now,
their blood-stained petals
caressed in the April wind.
They scatter across
the parking lot, the pollen
rubbing deep into the asphalt.

I want to say something about
God here, I guess. Or maybe
how when spring returns, 
and when the light gets stronger
at the end of the day, I feel
a little more alive.

But here I sit, on a rainy 
Saturday, watching the trees creak 
back and forth, their deep roots 
protecting them. 

I want deep roots. I want
certainty. Instead I get
half-assed truths, a life
unfolding more slowly than most.

But what of the dogwoods?
They exist in some sort of liminal
spring-space, an April-world
of doubt and hope and possibility.

Maybe I can be like that too.

​

Louisa Schnaithmann is the author of Plague Love (Moonstone Press) and her poetry has received Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations. Her most recent work can be found in Grey Sparrow Journal and The Broadkill Review. She is the consulting editor for ONE ART: a journal of poetry and lives in southeastern Pennsylvania.

---