An early thaw can be sudden, beguiling and brief. Wildflowers push through soil wet with snow-melt—branches burst into bud. In this poem, an old man and his son ritualize the loss of such vitality, an act addressing more than the oddities of weather. —Jody Bolz, Poetry Editor
GHOSTS OF APRIL
In slip-resistant socks, aiming his WWII binoculars,
my father shouts from the kitchen window
at the enormous maple tree in back, Why?!
Not one leaf on its branches in mid-April. Worse yet:
countless dull black buds are scattered over
packed dirt and raised root tangles.
Four days straight back in February, temperatures spiked
in the 70s. During those astonishing cumulus-bright days,
his cousin Nate and two friends passed.
And Dad fell. We rushed him to the hospital—
concussion, unstable vitals. The maple budded.
Fifteen inches of snow fell that weekend.
Now, arm in arm, we walk against my mother’s four pleas:
too cold, too windy, wait for tomorrow, have some soup first.
The neighbors stop us as we pass,
repeat how good he looks. He nods, shrugs, waves, keeps
his cautious stride, whispers, They look like they’ve seen a ghost.
They may be right.
In the yard, in his two old coats, he sits down on the bench.
Kneeling by the tree, I gather up the hard, dark bits,
which he calls the little dead ones.
I dig with the sharp tip of a branch as he points to ones
I’ve missed—and when he raises his palm, I bury them all,
collect and leave a circle of stones.
As we head in, he squeezes my arm: You know, the Kaddish
never mentions death…only God’s goodness. My hand’s in my pocket,
closing around two small stones.
Michael Mark, a 2026 Pushcart Prize recipient, is the author of Visiting Her in Queens Is More Enlightening Than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet, winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, 32 Poems, The Sun, and The Best New Poets 2024, among others.
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