Living Tree Poetry

I wonder why it is that spring must blossom,
must erupt in company with the wind.

Why it is that a bud would form,
as fragile as tissue,
unfold and compete with a gust.

Why it is the sweet things are brief
and the longest length in waiting
for things that are gone in a breath.

Why it is beauty loves to dance
though she must drop her garments
and then fall like a leaf to the ground.

I wonder why the hope that this year
the trees will carry their crowns
under a balmy spring, summer sky.

As though spring isn’t a mix of winter
and something
that looks strangely like hope without restraints.

Let free without thought,
as though for this it were made,
a fling, a flourish, a give way.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
August 2020