The Bud and the Bloom

I'm spending quite a bit of time, as the days grow more and more enchanting, walking the back-streets of Portland, notebook in hand and iPod set to Nick Drake. I watch for the little things; the things too easily missed. Or, as someone said to me, the things in between. It's impossible, however, to miss the carpet of cherry blossoms that covers the ground. Soon, of course, it will all begin to brown and fade, but, for this brief, perfect moment, it blankets everything in a glorious bed of pink.

The Bud and the Bloom

The bridal wreath's cast off again,

in pink and pearl petals on the ground,

supplanted by a simple train

of sober-shadowed leaves that open round

this little remnant of the bloom

that bears away the hours and the days,

asleep within a supple womb

and heedless of the sun's unhurried rays.

They coax it out of close repose;
oh, splendid bud, that beauty might arrest
my heart and eyes, as beauty does,
and hold, within me, life sublime and blest.