March poem, 2022
today, I needed to see something come up through
the dirty, twig strewn winter earth, break out
of a crack in the sidewalk, for this unlikely
March sun, to seed a piece of earth caged
around trees I passed on almost every block\year
of my life, today, when the whole earth is
being threatened, needed to see beyond
narrow definitions of sprout, crocus
and sighting only wrapped bunches of flowers
outside fruit stores, interchangeable as all those
groups I’ve been part of over the years,
a sign inside another store’s flower display
reads, don’t touch, they’re real…not real enough
I needed to touch, feel the living warmth
of alive, when getting a request from
an editor asking for information about a man
I loved, long gone…like bulbs replanted
that keep flowering…
that night, on the news I watched one
courageous human being