She waits: the cherry blossoms will appear,
Marking the end of winter’s bitter bite.
Cherry blossoms don’t last long on the
bough,
Perhaps five days and the flowers are gone.
Spendthrift winds shave them off swoopstake like stars:
A brief sun-made shadow-net on the ground,
A celestial deadfall cast on grass.
She walks: the flowers could fall before
full bloom.
She works her stick, a spring in her short
step.
Proud like a rose, the pale-pink tree
greets her,
Waves its canopy gently in the sky.
She knows the rains have given it deep
roots.
She has deep roots here, her will to
survive
Shaped and smoothed like pebbles on a lake
shore.
She shows the tree her bony worked-hard
hands.
She says sand-grains fine down into silt flats.
Eighty years making a farm from mountain,
She walks the leaf-fall of long memory.
She had heart-longed for a passionate love.
Her parents chose a man she did not know.
She loves the stories the sakura tells.
