National Poetry Month

In case you didn't know April is National Poetry Month. I have had a love affair with poetry since I was a little kid. Back then my favorite kinds of poems went like this:

I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on the knife.

Well my tastes did increase in range, although I'm still fond of that one:) However in honor of National Poetry Month I offer a more traditional classic.

At April
By Angelina Weld Grimke (1880-1958)

Toss your gay heads,
Brown girl trees;
Toss your gay lovely heads;
Shake your downy russet curls
All about your brown faces;
Stretch your brown slim bodies;
Stretch your brown slim arms;
Stretch yr brown slim toes.
Who knows better than we.
With the dark, dark bodies,
What it means
When April comes a-laughing and a-weeping
Once again
At our hearts?