The Dogwoods are Blooming

(I just sent this to Patricia, but I thought I'd share since I've been wanting to write poetry again because I haven't in years until just now) I just wrote a poem, like not 30 seconds ago. I was driving today--it was a blissfully beautiful day, blue sky, warm, everything spring like. And I was in the ugliest part of town, populated with strip malls and Kmarts. It's a busy street, a highway actually, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a girl stop walking to look at this tree blooming in a riot of pink and white. And then she did something remarkable, which was that she went to the tree to get a closer look. When she was about a foot away, she put out her hand and touched a blossom so tenderly it was like a prayer and it was beautiful. I'm a bit rusty so the poem is kind of cheesy but you know, it's spring--it kind of inspires all sorts of lovely cheesiness :)

Without Which, We Cannot Reach

A drab furrow of strip malls
Blurs as I drive by.
The tawny sunlight catching in the grass
Rings irascible, virulent.
The windshield is moving tableaux
Framing a girl in gym shorts,
A Nike backpack,
Standing in a gully
Bloated with runoff, trash, debris.
Her ponytail nips at the wind.
She is still, still
So still that what happens—
The raising of her hand,
The unfurling of her fingers
Towards blossoms—
Seems impossible.