THE COURTSHIP OF WINDS

Guy D'Annolfo

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Winter buds

 

…glad to the brink of fear.

Emerson

I glance back at the chartreuse bud, bowed 
vertical on a towering magnolia, leafless, arrogant 
to interrogation, its fuzzy silence in vigil
with a hundred other, staring the cold sky.
 
I round the trail up to a copse of pine, softened
with bright orange needles where I disintegrate 
into breath smoke when struck by the light of two
black buck eyes; pelt twitch, nostrils wiggle,
 
two tentative steps forward: he's not 
asking permission to breathe; stripped to a pulse 
thrum, I vow to bear this moment out 
 
with the steady composure of a winter bud patient 
to unfold with spring, yet willing to let go 
in the season when sun palms tender tepals.

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