Cathy Carver is a graduate of Russellville High School who comes from a musical family, including her mom, the late Hazel Carver, and her son John, who has released his own CD. This is her tribute to spring in Russellville, even though she has lived in New Mexico for many years

The melody catches
on the breeze
and
is carried through
the curtains that blow
from
my piano teacher’s window
down
the
block.
A Bach Invention.


Across the way, Mary Hardin
performs
her annual spring exercises.
Pound,
pound,
pound.
A jackhammer on the
same
chord,
relentlessly thumped
one hundred,
two hundred times on her
dead Mother’s old upright.
Out onto the April wind.

At our house
Mother coaches the
soloists for festival -
blackberry,
chocolate,
apple,
pie.
The scent of music fills the air.

The neighbors open their windows
and plan
summer gardens.