Fierce winds marked the
awakening spring
blowing into some future time
that chill lodged for months
in sparse branches.
My dogwood held strong
green berries bumpling from its
charcoal arms
I wrapped myself around the trunk
pressing my cool cheek into
creviced wood
imagining a beating heart coaxing
thick sap through its bare limbs
Back soon,
I whispered
to my quiet companion
keeping company with me through
that long winter.
I drove away with my tree
reducing to a grey bud
in the rearview mirror.
Four days later my
rain splattered windshield could
barely contain the
vision
an explosion of white
flowers
caroling from those branches.
They say transformation is a
process
that blossoming
takes time
but now I know
the laborious flow of change
happens deep in our veins as we only
appear
to hibernate in silent stasis, and then the
final flowering
comes in a breathless
surge
the seeds poised and waiting
bursting forth in what only seems to be
one moment.
my dogwood splayed across the grounds
was at once singing an exuberant
vernal chorus and
sighing
in profound relief
to be shining at last
its most glorious.
Poem by Nicole Grace
Nicole Grace is the author of five books, which have won multiple international literary awards, including poetry collections The Temple and Bodhisattva. Her poems have recently appeared in Pensive, Pearl River Quarterly and HerWords. She is grateful to live close enough to the Pacific Ocean to hear it roar under a full moon.