Walking home

[radiantfracture]

Even in the rain, the cherry blossoms are luminous, though less distinct, like a vague cool glance from someone beautiful thinking of something else.

Their smell, though, coaxed loose by the precise and insistent raindrops, seems stronger and sweeter than on a bright day. Beyond the familiar peppery scent, something in them admits finally to being flowers.

There's a good cedary smell tonight, too, like a new fence, a young smell maybe also lifted up out of old wood and stain by the water's alchemy.

A fat black-and-white cat surges like a storm cloud into a foggy window, as if responding to me, but not looking at me.

There is a hole worn right through the concrete here, near the new sidewalk, showing through to the storm sewer like a wound.

This was a long day, and not a happy one, but these small witnessings are more than compensation; they are a clear rain that drives the ugly fragments into the gutter, down the drain, out into the great night-soaked ocean.

Though sometime I may have to retrieve and make sense of them, right now I am just grateful for a small clear space.

{rf}

Comments

[radiantfracture]

Thank you for poetry!

Though now I feel old relative to Housman, which seems unfair since he, if not his words, is dead o.

That seems unkind. I'm glad he got a few extra springs.

Let's see. Here is a silly improvisation:

First smack of spring, the pink, pinker,
and white cherry trees lift me
by the suspenders of my gaze
and like beautiful bouncers
heave me out the door and down
the street to a day of lesser
beauty and more sober visions.

{rf}

* I cleverly deduce that your friends list is mostly in the Northern Hemisphere.

[larryhammer]

Largely northern, yeah. Fair cop.