Pussywillow - Dec. 28, 2023

finding my first pussywillow

probably won’t match

your first moment with yours

six years old    colorless

March day    upstate New York

I was waiting for this gray

furry caterpillar to move

after I bent and released

the naked branch a couple times

no one told me

this was life emerging

from a long-wintering tree

just like they hadn’t told me

childhood was a bubble

that the world would soon pierce

or that I’d build walls around me

for protection and survive wounds

that would hurt more inside than out

and they certainly

couldn’t use the pussywillow

to explain that something

as soft and harmless as love

could grow beyond the clouds

and outshine the sun