Beloved

You are the seasons that I am grateful to live. Your heart is a field of wildflowers; I explore in the spring. And you hand me the first yellow leaves of the forsythia, then when in bloom you brush my cheek with the white light of the Queen Ann’s lace. 

Beloved, when your arms open, they are my shelter from the rain that pummels the shed. In summer, after I sit in the sand, my heated body embraced by your cool ocean turquoise body. I float on my back, flip, and float again on my back. Your heart, a warm spoon to my mouth feeds me figs, mulberries, raspberries stirred in oats at morning when the sun rises. It’s the golden drizzle of honey I savor on my tongue as October winds scatter orange, and plum-colored leaves in the pond. Does your heart remember the silence of winter? I recall the way you turn up my palms to hold generous quiet snowflakes. Thank you beloved for chiming my heart with warmth of your eyes.  

Carrying The Cherry Blossoms 

Rosa steps on the six o’clock train traveling North alongside the river. Her window seat is perfect for her brown eyes that now belong to the ripples riding on the breeze, the occasional willow, and the mauve clouds crawling behind linked mountains. The train pauses at the Delmara Station picking up more passengers heading home after work. Rosa tucks a strand of curly hazelnut hair behind her ear and closes her eyes. Sounds of birds rush in as the doors close. She keeps her eyes shut when the stirring in her belly starts as if butterflies are taking off in a field of wildflowers. Her hands grip the handle of the small black suitcase in her lap, touching both sides of her thighs. In it, her daughter Clara’s favorite white silk dress, painted with pink blossoms on branches. When Clara was six years old, she walked barefoot under the cherry trees leaving her footprints on their roots. Look Mom, I’m helping them grow, she said, each time she circled them. At the picnic for her twenty-first birthday last year, Rosa recalls her glowing neckline in the sun.

The dress sitting at edge of her shoulders, sleeves at length of her mocha elbows. Rosa’s face and lips tremble with the image of Clara’s feet once again tip-toeing over roots. The train departs for her stop at Willow Kill. She reopens her eyes, the sky has an indigo hue, the half-moon has cast a silver shine on the river’s ripples. The train pulls into the station. Rosa’s heartbeat quickens like legs of horses galloping fast, kicking up dust behind them. Doors slide apart. She’s off the train before any other passengers push past her. Stepping onto the platform in the open moist air, an unexpected drizzle begins. Rosa’s face tingles. She walks down the stairs of the station hurrying to find a taxi. She looks up. Clouds shield the moon. A navy-blue Toyota pulls forward in front of her from the line of cars waiting for passengers. The driver leans across to the open window. Need a taxi? he asks. Rosa nods yes. Can I help you with your suitcase? I can put it in the trunk?  Rosa clutches the handle, No thanks, I need it by my side. The silk cherry blossom dress for Clara’s wake flashes in her mind.

Jerrice J Baptiste is an artist, poet, author of nine books. Her most recent book titled, Coral in The Diaspora published by Abode Press (August 2024). She’s been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize by The Poetry Distillery in 2026, Jerry Jazz Musician 2024 & Abode Press 2025, and as Best of The Net in 2022 by Blue Stem. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Mantis, Neologism Poetry Journal, The Write Launch, The Banyan Review, The Yale Review, The Lake, Artemis Journal and hundreds of others. Her watercolor drawings on paper have been accepted or forthcoming in Synchronized Chaos, Jerry Jazz Musician Magazine, MER, Saugerties Shout Out, Las Laguna Art Gallery exhibit in California, Spirit Fire Review. Jerrice has presented her art work at The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, in June 2025. She’s been featured twice as a solo artist in 2025 & 2026 in an art exhibit at The Mountaintop Library in Tannersville, NY. She facilitates poetry as a returning teaching artist at The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. Her poems & collaborative songwriting are featured on the Grammy nominated album-Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti.