This is Poetry Moment on WPSU, a weekly program featuring the work of contemporary Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet and author Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, author of more than 20 books, and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
Welcome to Poetry Moment. I’m Marjorie Maddox.
Astronomical spring, also known as the March equinox or vernal equinox, was Friday, March 20. You might know it as the first day of spring, when day and night are nearly the same length. But does that guarantee blue skies and warm breezes? Don’t count on it. Tired of the cold, many of us yearn for moderate weather. We’re tired of snow. As Jack J. Chielli explains in his poem “Spring Delivers Us,” we wait to “be reborn into…sunlight.”
Jack J. Chielli lived in Pennsylvania for thirty years, and many of his poems are about the fields and mountains of the Keystone State. Currently living in Frederick, Maryland, he earned an MA in poetry from Wilkes University and a BA in Writing from Roger Williams University. His poetry has appeared in the Martin Lake Journal, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Coal Hill Review, and Keystone Poetry: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania.
In the late seventeenth century, the term “spring fever” was associated with scurvy, caused by a lack of vitamin C in the winter months. Today, of course, it has a much more positive connotation— great anticipation for warmer weather that comforts some of us right about now.
Chielli wrote today’s poem, “Spring Delivers Us,” after years of walking the mountain paths of Pennsylvania with his dog, Willy.
Here’s “Spring Delivers Us” by Jack J. Chielli
Spring Delivers Us
Long before the snow began melting
on this mountain, there were deer paths
etched through the thin forest
and the fragrance of a distant fireplace filled the valley.
Be still here long enough
and one begins to believe
they can be awakened.
Down from the slopes of the Kittattiny Mountains,
the northeast winds rake through the fields
of broom grass, brushing aside the leaves
that cover the shallow graves of small animals
—exposing the alchemy of turning bones into dust.
This is where the dry leaves are pushed
from awakening branches
into the awaiting flames
of the green ferns.
Where time becomes timeless.
My darkness endless.
Where a cold rain falls.
To be reborn into this sunlight
is to shed the woefulness that infects my mind.
It is to die before my death.
Spring snakes across the Appalachian Valley
through these mountain paths
lined with crimson underbrush
—it's no secret,
spring comes prepared to deliver us,
and surprised as always
we succumb.
That was “Spring Delivers Us” by Jack J. Chielli. Thanks for listening.
“Spring Delivers Us” previously appeared in "Keystone Poetry: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania" (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2025).
Listen for Poetry Moment with Marjorie Maddox, Mondays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WPSU. You can hear more episodes at wpsu.org/poetrymoment.
Our theme music is by Eric Ian Farmer.
