Observances

Over the grey ribbon road.

my neighbour’s cherry tree,

holds me, quizzically in its gaze,

as I nest, high in a 1930s terrace.

Long rooted, it has been dreaming

itself through storms, and floods.

Now it opens woodland eyes,

languid with the pleasure of spring.

Locked in, I think of my mother,

locked in too, miles away – she too

observing the halting revelations

of violet, primrose, moss’s gentle creep.

Yesterday, the cherry held six blooms,

now there are more than thirteen.

We should have held each other sooner,

but we always wait far too long.

I wonder if the cherry,

mindful long before it was fashionable,

counts our steps like petals -

smoothly collecting the pathos of things