Before I start writing,
I step outside to take a sip
of spring, well aware

of the poetic cliché,
the unearned enthusiasm
as if we’ve just weathered

the longest winter of our lives,
a series of unenduringly,
unending gray days.

But some of us have,
I think, standing in the first
day of spring sunshine

for just a few moments,
watching the breeze
jostle new hollyhock stalks,

realizing that the iris blossoms
that popped up last week wagging
their long white and purple tongues

are already dying. I can’t write
again about simultaneous
beginnings and endings,

I chide myself, about the glory
of a stunning sunny day,
but here I am doing just that

as, over the driveway, tiny wisteria
bundles prepare to burst into
lavender showiness—

the ones I noticed as I stood,
robed and slippered early this
morning to watch the first dawn

of spring creep over rooftops
across the street, enlightening
what I think of as my world,

which, of course, is your world,
this planet of bugs and blossoms,
of comings and goings, of this

endless, blesséd cycle that we
call a life.