It is us rooted to the ground with our heads in the clouds,

who feel the tremors, the gales, the shadows, the wink of stars,

smell of hay, the threshold of smiles, ligaments and bones. Us,

who will be most uplifted and trampled by the seasons of life.

We yearn for spring. Our energy vibrates in balmy evenings,

our depressions are better in the light.“Photosynthesize!”

celebrates the sun which delights in our growth, awaking

fragile tendrils that quiver towards an impossible touch.

Our trembles and tears are made bright. Dancing across

our cheeks blushing and buzzing with the blossoming weather.

Chapped lips upturn with the inhale and the exhale:

wind and breath can no longer chill the soul bathed warm.

Still,

The assault of fresh joys must be humbled and sandpapered

from sonnets to smiles, scorned by the modernized sensible.

We are polite and mannered to a fault, which will later split

under snowy ground and numb us into the muted chasm of winter.

So don’t uproot us or cut us down. Do not trim our branches or

ask us to ripen before bearing fruit. There is a veranda between

the cyclical and spontaneous, the spider and the butterfly, where

we rest and run in an infinite blink of dust and sun.