The sweet dots of spring!
The cherry-lipped cups
as they flutter, then fall
and pattern our walking with brightness!
The ghost-white of pear blooms
that gauze the sun’s light.
The sweet dots that hang
from a thread, like stars
in a cluster above which
leaves form. Then the fur
and the frenzy as winds
blow and dance them.
And oh, it was late
this year, how we had waited
for eyes, lips, the face of a bud
brimming fullness and hue,
for a rouging of bark tips,
a swelling of seed.
And oh, how I feared
that earth had rebelled,
had held back this greening,
the birth of new things.
Beat-stopped my heart was
while waiting for spring.
But now, dripping swelter
dogs silence, as suddenly, winter
turns summer, so leaf buds
are shocked by the blaze
of a sun perhaps potent and vicious
through change. What can
we tell them, these infants?
What can we say? Breathe
slowly, babies. Inhale, adapt.
This is the new way.
