Cherry Blossom

Not the blaze of roses, not their cliche insistence,

but this delicate blossom -

a kind of arrival so gentle

you could miss it

if you were thinking of something or someone else.

All winter the branches have held their breath,

black script against a sky that wouldn’t answer.

Oh how, we learned the grammar of endurance:

how to wait, how to close down,

how to be smaller than we are.

But now -

as if the air itself had loosened -

they open.

Not fully, not all at once,

but in a scatter of pale syllables,

pink petal by petal,

a language made of almost-nothing,

so light in it's desire to be seen.

Stand beneath these fragile kites

on these blue-skied days,

and engulf them while you can.

It’s not just their beauty I love -

it’s the way they refuse to stay.

Already, the lightest wind

unwrites what was written this morning.

What kind of courage is this,

to bloom knowing the terms of such brevity?

To offer everything

in a handful of days?

And yet they do -

soft explosions along every branch,

each one a brief permission

to feel the world as newly made.

Soon, we’ll walk through their aftermath,

that quiet snowfall of what couldn’t last,

petals dissolving into the ordinary earth

they never tried to escape.

But for now,

stand here in this almost-weightless weather,

this brightness with no promise.

Call it joy, if you want,

but hold it lightly

for it's already leaving,

and that’s what makes it shine.