the poppies

the redbud is shedding petals
over the poppy bed like an excited flower girl,
bright fuchsia buds caught on soft fuzzy leaves.

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shining

the forsythia has been slow to bloom this spring,
green leaves creeping up its tangled branches
and unfurling with no sign of flowers at all.

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dwindling to dust

the butter-yellow tulip
has now faded to cream,
streaks of rose gracing
the pale petals as they
bend back toward the earth.

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the first tulip bloomed today,
golden as butter,
and i wished i could show you
its delicately frilled petals

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i wish you could show me the spring

i wish you could show me the spring —
wildflowers waking up on the creek bank,
catkins greening at the slender ends of oak branches

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dressed for spring

midway up the hill
the neighbor’s weeping fig
is dressed for spring
a gown of bridal white blossoms
shielding leafless branches.

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the lily bed

if i had any rage i took it out on the lily bed and its web of ingrown roots the fruit of thirty years of spawning tigers i scythed and hoed, slicing through sod separating innumerable worms from their other ends and cleaving through the rusty orange roots that choked the ground until, at last,…

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prelude

the sharp blade pierced the greening grass
and shovelfuls of soil revealed wakened worms
shrinking away from the light

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skeptical soil

ten trees arrived in the mail today
their tender trunks scarcely more than twigs
but already I was imagining the bank
of white blossoms in the spring —
hawthorne, dogwood, crab —
and the pale hellebores i’d bought
that would start blooming in the snow

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