Poem for Tuesday and Kenwood Cherry Blossoms

Spring Snow
By Linda Gregerson

A kind of counter-
blossoming, diversionary,

doomed, and like
the needle with its drop

of blood a little
too transparently in

love with doom, takes
issue with the season: Not

(the serviceberry bright
with explanation) not

(the redbud unspooling
its silks) I know I've read

the book but not (the lilac,
the larch) quite yet, I still

have one more card to
play. Behold

a six-hour wonder: six
new inches bedecking the

railing, the bench, the top
of the circular table like

a risen cake. The saplings
made (who little thought

what beauty weighs) to bow
before their elders.

The moment bears more
than the usual signs of its own

demise, but isn't that
the bravery? Built

on nothing but the self-
same knots of air

and ice. Already
the lip of it riddled

with flaws, a sort
of vascular lesion that

betokens—what? betokens
the gathering return

to elementals. (She
was frightened

for a minute, who had
planned to be so calm.)

A dripline scoring
the edge of the walk.

The cotton batting blown
against the screen begun

to pill and molt. (Who
clothed them out of

mercy in the skins
of beasts.) And even

as the last of the
lightness continues

to fall, the seepage
underneath has gained

momentum. (So that
there must have been a

death before
the death we call the

first or what became
of them, the ones

whose skins were taken.)
Now the more-

of-casting-backward-than-of-
forward part, which must

have happened while I wasn't
looking or was looking

at the skinning knives. I think
I'll call this mercy too.

 -------- 

Monday was a Monday until late afternoon -- laundry, annoying work, other chores -- but we needed to bring some packages to the UPS Store in Bethesda, including our old phones for trade-in and an Amazon return, so on the way we went to see the cherry trees in Kenwood. We've had snow squalls and occasional hail and it was in the 30s with wind chill in the 20s, but the neighborhood still had peaking cherry blossoms and plenty of forsythia, daffodils, and robins, so it was beautiful. 

 

Paul and I watched the season finale of Snowpiercer, which was very satisfying except that Wilford, Melanie, and Andre still are not dating each other in any configuration, then we watched The Endgame, which remains preposterous but I like all the women in it, and then we caught up on Sanditon, which was so much less stressful than the Oscars that I kind of wish I'd watched it last night, though I really feel badly for Coda and Questlove and Ariana and Jessica getting overshadowed.