Every May I wait for it to call me.
“It’s time. Come now,” it beckons.
It has to call; I don’t normally pass it
in my daily travels. But one day every May
something inside me hears it: “Come now.”
When I get there, it is laughing colors
and it tosses pink and white dogwood petals
in welcome, and robins stroll on the lawn.
Over there, by the sidewalk, is a tree
whose pink flowers look like carnations,
and doesn’t it make you fall silent to gaze
at the red of these Japanese maple leaves?
I float from one corner to another as if
I were one of these tender blossoms
waltzing with the wind. I cannot tell you
how or why it happens. The only answer
I know is love.
