May 9, 2010
by Ben Rasnic


The trees renew
their tapestries of green
and the playful chatter
of gray squirrels returns.

Maple seedlings
complete their curious
whirlybird descent.

The vegetable garden’s
black earth has softened, bursting
with flowering tomatoes
and sprawling cucumber vines.

With each measured strike
of hoe, I sense
my father’s forearms and hands
torqued and flexing
alongside my own;

The lilac bush
parades purple corsages
clusters clinging tenuously
fragile memories of past springs.

Sky blue eggs
nestled in English boxwood
splinter into transparent
baby robins

their heads tilted back
to take in first breath

just as my father’s
to take in his last.






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