Hello and welcome to the Daily Poem. I'm Heidi White, and today is Friday, March 5th.

Today I'm going to read for you a poem by Anne Spencer. Now, I've only recently become acquainted

with this wonderful poet, and I'm so excited to share one of her poems with you today.

Anne Spencer was an African American poet, teacher, librarian, and civil

rights activist. She's best remembered today as a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance,

where she knew and worked with such other poets as Langston Hughes, James Walden Johnson,

County Cullen, and others.

Anne Spencer was also an avid gardener, which that's an interest she and I share.

She's a much more accomplished gardener than I am.

And in fact, today you can even go tour the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum in Virginia.

One very high honor that Anne Spencer carries is that she was the first black woman whose poetry

was published in the prestigious Norton anthology of literature, a very well-deserved honor for her.

And the poem I'm going to read for you today is called for Jim Easter Eve and this is how it goes.

If ever a garden was a Gethsemini with old tombs set high against the crumpled olive tree

and liken this my garden has been to me for such as I none other is so sweet. Lacking old tombs, here stands my grief, and certainly its ancient tree. Peace is here, and in every season a quiet beauty. The sky falling about me evenly to the compass. What is sorrow but tenderness now in this earth-close frame of land and sky falling constantly into horizons of east and west, north and south? What is pain but happiness here amid these green and wordless patterns and definite texture of blade and leaf.

Beauty of an old, old tree, last comfort in Gethsemini.

Now we're not really close to Easter right now.

Several weeks away still, as a matter of fact. And so I probably should have

saved this poem for Holy Week. But I just couldn't. This is a poem that's been haunting me,

and I wanted to share it with you. As I said, Anne Spencer was an avid gardener, and you can hear

the gardening metaphor here within this poem.

She refers to the garden, her own garden as a Gethsemini, which, to remind our listeners,

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