In our unexpected two days of welcome warmth, an amazing thing happened.
I tried to capture it in words. The below falls far short, but, for what it's worth -
Cherry Blossoms
Hard winter aweigh
through unlikely feet of snow
to today
a sudden April warmth.
The ground coolly uncertain which green thing
might still reach its tender
head into the sun.
I sit quiet
at the peak of the afternoon warmth.
Quiet - so still - I harmonize in my mind
to my old dog's
sleeping musical breath.
and in the stillness
(me - stillness in the warmth) a sound -
tick -tick-
not rhythmic but cascading,
like a herd of tiny feasting birds
breaking seed with sharp beaks.
tick.
tick-tick.
Like the smallest of small rain on an aluminum roof,
no cadence but drifting on the air in little waterfalls of sound.
What could that be?
Without disturbing
the music of the old dog
I quietly pace the backyard,
behind the bushes,
along the feeders,
up the tree branches to see if
that grey squirrel might be
teasing me with his ventriloquy...
I sit back down and let the silence,
except for the tick tick tick,
engulf me.
And then, all senses roaming,
my ear turns to the cherry tree,
leaning toward me like a longing old love,
and I knew.
I knew.
That the ticking astounding sound was the music of a thousand cherry buds
releasing from their green and swollen cases.
A mystery, revealed.
Humbled,
I harmonize the music of the old dog
to the sound of the bursting tree,
and for the first time in a long time
I am
amazed.
April, 2009
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