Pink

See how I have returned to you:

Bright and flushed and new!

You who have trusted

The prophecy

Of each potential bloom,

Have had your faith rewarded.

Why weep

Or wonder

Or worry

About how long

I will stay?

Pink is

By nature

Impermanent.

But while it lasts,

It saves.

Turning

It is not the way the robin with its bright yellow breast

Perches on my mailbox

Like an honored guest

It is not the way the worm with a luxurious stretch

Crawls out from a tuft

Of resurrected grass

It is not the beginnings of tulips

Or the softening of the ground

Or the greening of the path to the river

It is not the way the buds on the trees tease me

With their promise

Of the soon-ness of newness

Rather it is the wind

That blows between the gaps

Of the almost blooming branches

And asks if I will remember

The structure of emptiness,

The shelter of barrenness,

Once spring’s fecundity

Overtakes my senses

Rage (NaPoWriMO Day 5)

My spring softening
froze over upon seeing
deer eat my tulips


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Arrival (NaPoWriMo Day 1)

The way the river swells and pushes

The way the meadow sits brown and heavy

The way I switch with distrust from wool socks to cotton

The way the trailhead parking lot overflows on Sundays

The way ice gives way to mud and makes the hikers giddy

The way my face craves affection,

And turns with gratitude

To the stingy, sometimes-blue sky.