In Full Bloom

Like every year about now,
the same plain stems are yawning,
their first words brilliant red petals,

And a grizzly in a rock hole,
alone at the end of his dreams,
does a sun salutation.

The ice has broken,
if you haven’t heard,
soon only to be crystal pages,
another winter someone’s father’s father
will read from memory, will turn
with bestseller lips.

And Lena, woman of pauses,
takes two when I ask her how she is,
fifty something rivers and
my winged minutes between us.

Towards me,
the generation she sees through,
the cardboard snappers with exhaust in
our shoes, our noses, our stories,
a water wheel that will only turn over ten more times
this morning, she
nods and puts her words in anyway,
says,

Today,
I woke up happy
for the first time
in a long time.

And like that
I can’t see the ground,
her voice in full bloom.