Poem: A Touch of Green, for Mike Hogan

Even in the dead of winter,

if you look closely enough,

you’ll still find touches of green.

And in the most surprising places.

All the surrounding trees and bushes,

the glory of the other seasons,

have given up the ghost

in concession to severe cold

and fading sunlight,

but the lowly and despised bush honeysuckle

refuses to forfeit even one leaf

of its summer brightness.

There are things in this world

that simply will not die,

that throw their whole being

into a denial of death and decay.

The human spirit is one of them.

Robert Hamblin is emeritus professor of English at Southeast Missouri State University, where he taught for 50 years and served as the founding director of the school’s Center for Faulkner Studies. He is the author or editor of nearly 60 books, including poetry, fiction, literary criticism, biographies and memoirs. He is currently working on a series of ekphrastic poems based on photographs he admires. As he says, “Photographs speak; all you have to do is listen.”