Poems by Sylvia Riojas Vaughn
A Private Performance Honoring the Vernal Equinox
Sunshine gains strength,
winter wanes, days grow longer.
Palest green begins to gentle the stark
horizon of sleeping branches.
Dandelions brighten dormant grass.
Ah, birdsong!
In my garden,
I tug off my boots,
peel off my socks,
dance as freely
as yellow daffodils
waving in the breeze.
Damp soil between my toes,
I stop,
turn my face toward the sky,
eyes closed,
fingertips reaching for the clouds.
Refreshed,
exhilarated,
I hose off my feet,
the water still chilly.
I grin – the season
for flip flops underway.
Texas Lantana
The velvety clusters of orange and yellow
bloom as the earth warms in April.
The brilliance shakes me awake
from bleak hibernation.
I pluck a leaf,
inhale its sharp aroma –
nature’s smelling salts.
Each flower shaped liked a herald’s trumpet,
I can almost hear a joyous call
to birds and butterflies –
“Come one, come all
to nectar’s wellspring!”
The colors, so autumnal,
burst forth at winter’s end
in fields, in thickets,
on gravelly hills,
brightening the gray bark,
surrounding scrub.
The blazing globes
presage summer’s intensity.
Like a Canary Singing in the Garden
Stalwart, green leaves upright,
the daffodil blooms,
overshadowed by ornamental kale,
surrounded by showy pansies.
Saucy!
I smile,
snap a photo
with my iPhone.
That’s how I want to be.
Unique, bold.
I’d like my smile to make others smile,
my ideas to blossom.
I’d like someone
to take my picture in a garden,
surrounded by friends in spring finery.
Sylvia Riojas Vaughn has work pending in an anthology of poets living in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area. Her work has appeared inRed River Review, Parousia Christian Magazine,Triadæ, Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku & Haiga, Texas Poetry Calendar,HOUSEBOAT, Beechwood Review, The Applicant, Diálogo, Label Me Latina/o, Somos en escrito: The Latino literary online magazine,Desde Hong Kong: Poets in conversation with Octavio Paz, and numerous other anthologies and journals. She has been selected as a Houston Poetry Fest Juried Poet three times. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, she belongs to the Dallas Poets Community.
