Spring Garden

Whether you like it or not,
buds are growing towards you
as you sit at a high window,
an intimate of out-of-reach branches;
days later, cascades fall,
earrings dangle, beneath sprigs
of feathery bleached parsley. Young grass
sows patches of light into the lawn,
and one morning you attend
the birth of a cicada,
unbending a damp wing.
In privileged closeness, you gaze
at eyes of almost-opaque crimson,
glass body, follow its path
from crisp brown shroud towards
a short-lived future. Eucalypts
drink sunlight, a strength in pallor,
counterpoint the pines holding
their darkness against the heat.
Beset by bees, wisteria spills
in chandeliers over the courtyard wall;
with a watery resistance to touch,
blossom clusters in different guises
throughout the garden, ready to
self-destruct in the slightest wind,
disperse like seeds onto mountain earth.