March 24, 2012

Dogwood blossoms bespeckle

This mist that saturates my morning,

You went AWOL right in my city

And what could I do but remind you

How the weeping willows are the first to regain

Their composure

Their color

Their sense of summer?

 

I must have forgotten that nuns carry car keys and get mail,

This city was the first to remind me.

It brought me feminist men on the trains who talked and talked

Till I ran away laughing, it brought me Cadman Plaza West and

Dark roasted coffee and new stores every week on St. Marks Place,

As if to compensate for what I’d lost and learned

To live without.

 

Now the yellow-green willows are draped

Over their fellow branches

Singing the national anthem,

And you have returned to tell me

You have risen through the soil

And can see the dogwood blossoms

That bespeckle this mist

That saturates my morning,

And what can I do but remind you

What you have to give this world?