b a r b a r a  f l e t c h e r: other poems


Breathing Trees

Tree limbs jostle in the March wind
waiting for buds to crack the bark,
break through fibrous skin.
Each year we wonder if the buds will arrive,
wrapped in a crusty blanket of road salt,
nursed by rain dripped from dirty concrete,
with factories and breweries breathing
smoke rings around their infant bodies.

But each year, the buds break through:
small, soft, and reptilian red, delivered
safely in the haze of bus exhaust.
And as each moment opens into the next
we want to stay to watch each birth,
each bud burst - to witness the stages
unfold in the life of each leaf as it unfurls
into the air it will struggle each day to save.