Petals
The branches on the black oak are still empty, still bare
Same with the silver birch, the kentucky coffeetree, the american elm
But the japanese marigold, the japanese marigold is different
Its branches hang low and long
as white petals peak through one of its green buds
stretching towards a ray of light that is slipping between two rainclouds
A blue jay circles around it, singing and searching
And a drop of the morning shower slides down the petals arch
falling to the brown dirt beneath it
Do you think about this drop finding its way back up,
through the soil, the roots, the softness of the trunk?
Meanwhile, the blue jay lands on the ground
Her feathers look as soft as the petals, like they grew overnight
She is digging with her thin beak into the wet soil
for a worm, a beetle, maybe a treasure she has hidden
But she doesn’t find it, and retreats to the branch
Eventually another drop falls from the petal
And she is back on the ground, searching again
Like she is sure she will find it
Don’t we all lose things that are precious to us?
Don’t we all forget, even just for a moment,
that the spring always comes?
