The Garden of Verse: Verse-Virtual Offers Poems for the First Month of a New Year, A Time of New Hopes and Sketchy Weather

My thanks to editor Jim Lewis for managing once again to put together a marvelous new edition of Verse-Virtual. January 2021 issue includes work by 66 poets, including new poems by Tom Montag (from his "The Woman in an Imaginary Painting" series), Jefferson Carter, Tricia Knoll, Michael Minassian, David Graham, Marilyn Taylor, Sylvia Cavanaugh, Steve Klepetar, Sharon Waller Knutson, Alan Walowitz and so many others.

The issue also includes my own poem "Calendar Days," a salute to the new year that takes a bittersweet look at the climatic possibilities of the upcoming months, particularly in atmospherically unpredictable New England.
Here’s my wintry forecast for the next three months:
Calendar Days
You cannot count on when the snows will hide the ground and draw the flocks January shifts its ground, confusing eager body clocks Some days of rain refuse to freeze Others tempt with softer breeze February, much the same, is also March Frost holds the ground, but seldom white Some days are mild, the roots to stir And thoughts of spring begin to whir Then freezing spells turn hopes to spite And then the month whose name is change All months now are seeming March, With chilly fingers in the windWe stalk the sunny, sometime hours Looking for foreshadowed flowers

To read the rest of the poem, my other two poems, and work by all poets in the January 2021 issue see January 2021