POEM - The Dogwood

This is not a time for doubt –
Certainly, the Dogwood shows none,
As it opens pearl white petals to the infant spring -
It proffers flowers as the gentlest smile,
With a still beauty that is open and wild,
And asks us for the most painful kind of trust.
It is her generous gift to a world in resurrection.
And you – you are just her shy smile too,
Her open-hearted gift to the uncertain dusk
Her faith in resurrections and what must be true
About all that lives, about love, about things both old and new:
That what remains is always kept in the quiet marrow of us.

There is no room for doubt now –
Only gratefulness and memory as love’s final bow.

POEM: Black Raspberry Ice Cream Reverie

The dogwoods look so tired tonight,
But I –
I breathe in the gauzy light and lilac air tonight.
The west emits a black raspberry glow tonight
As Canadian whispers swoop down on us tonight,

Dogwoods dance in slow romantic moves tonight -
Step and slide, step and slide -
And the trees – the other trees
Which make up the community of trees –
Accept this call to quiet, this gentle reverie tonight,
Belted out in brassy tones by the breaking –
By the breaking up of fragile light.

While I –
I can still taste the tang of the black raspberry ice cream
We ate today in warmer air,
Swaddled by a melting friendship -
Now what could ever taste as sweet?