What am I looking for here anyway?
Why can't I stay away from the long panes
Giving on to an ordinary garden?
Again and again I walk up to the window and stare.
The steady yard leans into the rain, coloring.
Hyacinths stir in a bravery of daffodils
Clustered at the base of winter-blackened posts
That brace the glistening fence.
Birch bark silvers in front of forsythia sprays.
What is the name for youngness? Nausicaa.
Nausicaa. And an apple tree
Turns this way in back of the burned out house next door.
Not mine, not for my sake
These dripping petals, these leaves beautifully breaking
Beyond green verges to be mirrored in wet slate.
My stammering heart!. The pearling rain
Of return, and we face each other in a garden
Taking the lightest breaths
Of our lives. Diffident. Likest a sapling. Brave.
We stand in the lost springtime of our selves
At once withheld and given. Nausicaa.
I travel. I keep looking. I have nothing.
It all happened a long time ago.