In this still forest
an Eastern Towhee kicks leaves
on the warming ground.

Next to its dead mate,
the silent mourning goose sits,
just as spring begins.

My mother and I
stop to admire these tulips,
they scent the courtyard.

Geese on the river,
hepatica on the shore,
my dog and I walk.

Jack-in-the-pulpit,
like the most beautiful thing
a person could make.

Like a monument,
engraved with marks from each year,
the gray-barked beech stands.

Complicated clouds,
the watery veil of spring,
minds still fogged over.

No simple story—
broken beginnings and ends,
lost dreams, recorded.

Mornings in springtime,
all the things that take up space,
growing, making homes.

Rain coming all day,
the trillium’s soft shoulders
spread out — unburdened.

The trillium stands
in the soft April forest,
its yellow heart glows.

Goldfinches lit up,
changing color as I walk,
their song is yellow.

Remember that day,
it wasn’t so long ago,
when all was not lost.

Like skeins, veins, a shawl,
blackened bark breaking apart—
smooth skin underneath.

Rings, proof of life,
both righteous and riotous—
home to other lives.

My mother’s plum tree,
how many birds have perched here,
releasing petals?

Testimonial,
above speech and below song,
this spring moss takes flight.

Withheld salvation,
we’re not meant for this heartbreak,
this separation.

The sun on their backs,
trout lilies and violas,
I live for these days.

Trees—rising, falling,
lily colonies below,
ancestors, not ghosts.