Cruel April

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and then got too busy to post it, but the sentiment still applies.

April, you're fucking terrifying.
Last week it was snowing.
How can I trust my bare skin to this air?
Do you even remember February?
How this landscape was a frozen cemetery?
How these trees were tombstones?
Now crocuses erupt from open graves
Past clumps of rotting leaves.
Too soon, April, and yet too late!

My mom bought a house when I was grown.
After years of apartments, trailers, basements,
Moving, always moving, she has settled down.
April, I walk through you like that house.
Nature has no memory,
Or these buds wouldn't be so bold, so tender.
When God sent a flood to cover the Earth
And destroy every living thing,
When the waters finally rolled back
And the land appeared, God sent a rainbow
As a promise.
No one thought to hold Him to this.

Once I went away all summer
And when I came home, my baby sister
Took one look at me and burst into tears.
I dropped onto one knee and held her
As she sobbed wordlessly in my arms,
Like, April, you hold me now.