Wedges of sunlight cast through my window.
The afternoon breeze whistles songs of spring.
Soon, blankets are spread out like flower beds
as people gather between roots and rocks,
avoiding the shade the maple provides.
The sun’s syrup leaks through tangled branches,
scattering paintings on the ground, adding
to half-done daisy chains and knotted grass,
abandoned for a sketchbook. Stacks of scenes
unfold before me. I rush to outline
a father leading his daughter along,
tucking a dandelion in her hair,
a lab runs by, a comet in the grass,
interrupting the arc of a frisbee,
a group disperses, knees stained with purple
dust, now leaving their chalk flora behind.
Cody Tieman ’20, of Columbus, Ohio, was an English major and a women’s & gender studies minor.