Pheromones
  
 Shamelessly they quiver
 in Spring breeze
 like pink tongues
 of panting dogs,
 lust for sun,
 breathe out those
 invisible vapors
 to seduce
 their pollinating lovers:
 no conscience,
 those flowers,
 or is there?
  
 Animals flehm,
 a grimace 
 on their faces,
 curl their upper lip
 like a smile,
 bare their teeth,
 not for aggression,
 but for the scent of love.
  
 It seems, 
 we, humans,
 send those signals
 without knowing.




  
 The other spring
  
 There it is again,
 that flicker of fear
 when branches burdened
 with abundant bloom
 wrap you
 in their unbearable scent,
 showing off
 shameless fertility.
  
 There, among dandelions,
 the broken shell of
 a hatched sparrow egg,
 the finest pastel blue
 you’ve ever seen.
  
 Spring does not fit any longer,
 Inside, seeds of loss sprout.
 You feel inadequately barren.




 May Melancholy
  
 Why is the heart 
 squeezed and tight
 in the heavy scented night,
 where love fulfilled
 among the ephemera bloom
 already wears a gloom
 of tomorrow’s wither,
 the longing  to hold the spring, 
 on an unconditional string,
 of eternal human illusion, 
 of entitlement and  right  
 to feel carefree and light,
 casting a shadow ahead
 of  wasted reflection
 and anticipated retrospection,
 on few years yearning  left
 to enjoy and savour
 May’s derisory flavour 

Return to Journal

Marion de Vos-Hoekstra was born in the Netherlands and is married to a career diplomat. They both served in North Yemen, Tanzania, United Kingdom, Mali, Spain, South Africa and The United States and now in the Netherlands. She trained as a teacher of French and as translator French, English and Dutch. She is also fluent in Spanish and German, plays the piano and the guitar, is amateur ornithologist and makes drawings, aquarelles and oil paintings Nature, human nature and her nomad life are her main inspiration. She attended several poetry workshops in English among which a Masterclass in New York at Poetshouse and a course at the prestigious 92Y Institute. She is the author of five poetry collections (in English and Dutch), 4 with Demer Press, and is published in several group anthologies and magazines (25) all over the world. (South Africa, Australia, UK and US).