by Robin Chapman

3/24
Gatlinburg,
The Smoky Mountains

Dear Ones– I think we are like
the trees–bare, broken-branched,
trunks green with lichen, holding
the rain before we let it drop;
in this month, shyly unfolding
a few buds, clusters of tiny lime
blossoms in the brown woods. That
we have only to step out of the Park
Vista Hotel atop the mountain, cross
the asphalt parking lot, weave
through the vans and semitrailers
past the swimming pool's Caribbean
blue to the garden, across the small
bridge arched like Monet's, into
the woods, our own wilderness, hollow
and ridge, putting on our first blossoms,
our tentative fists of bud and leaf,
to stand shining in the rain among
our neighbors, some of them always green.

Originally appeared in
The Christian Science Monitor