Young Writers Society

A Japanese Magnolia occupies my yard
delicate, barely taller than I

pencil thin ashy branches expand
little veering trails restless eyes travel.

Winter, buds appear and multiply
bundled in velvety warmth.

Modestly, fuchsia blushes out
salacious as ankles and knees flashed.

As warmth of spring dawns tentative
how she blushes now!

Though, elusive can be spring, fickle
many a year giving in to freeze again.

In these, each flower consumed by the frost
molder and wither and blush no more

properly reprimanded, that beauty falls away;
tattered, once pearly, party dresses strewn.

~

I suppose, I could maybe be like that tree,
who loved the sun so much it forgot to fear of cold

carefully, I avoid the frigidity of strangers
blushes and smiles can be feigned and distant

reserving trust for warmer ones and then
burgeon to show that hidden interior

falling open before the warmth of a sun
welcomed instead by the embrace of an icy truth

just alike, sisters even, I too shrivel
that love-struck elegance slithers farewell

a beauty gone and tarnished dark,
littering and becoming one with the ground

until I find comfort in reminders from years past;
however destitute those branches stand

someday, come winter again, buds form still
so, I will too effloresce again.