Waiting for My Spring

Afraid to lose what
I’ve been hoping for.
My face, it wears the
seasons that I bear.
Can you forget the feeling
of the sun?
Again, I’ve feared to
let my heart’s hope bud.

Again, I pray, please God
don’t take this away.

A frosted branch
puts forth a tiny bud.
Its leaves have never
grown to see the sun.
It wanes as Winter
lasts another year.
My garden’s never grown
a rose before.

The Perfumer’s Pew

If mercy was perfume, how might it be?
[The things I ponder sitting in the pew.]

Like rose, when plucked, does risk the hidden prick?
Or mint, who spreads out uninvitingly?
For valley-lily, backs need bow too low!
But bergamot must spend its first years bare.
It cannot be castoreum, for which the beaver bequeaths its life…
And oud’s infection takes too long to bear.
So spikenard, it’s too high a height to grow.
The dandelion dunce grows easily!
Or honey, in whose heart the stingers stick?

With riddled reasons, sit here, me and you.
I wonder, what is mercy’s recipe?