A Snow Goose Cherry Tree: Poem #6

POEM #6

INTRODUCTION:

The snow goose cherry tree must have greeted my muse. I couldn’t stop thinking about how stunningly elegant it looked with white blossoms blanketed over its branches. Even though I wove in the topic of my illness into the poem, a topic that is serious to me, I wrote the verses with playfulness and joy. Connecting with this strangely named tree felt like taking a healing potion. I insist on having fun while connecting with the verses.

A Snow Goose Cherry Tree Blooms in Winter. ©Lu Sobredo 2020

A SNOW GOOSE CHERRY TREE

A snow goose cherry tree touches the heart

Like a lost melody from long ago
Left unsung; longing, yearning to come out.

It seems far-fetched to think

There just might be a link

To winter, the tree and what ails me.

A brisk morning air this winter,

I often encounter soon after

Opening the door, on days I headed over

To a nearby neighborhood pool.

The somber winter and

Pain afflicted frame commingle

Like a cross between tragedy

And melodrama, I kid you not.

So tempting, many a times and oft,

To give in, give up and

Simply stay cocooned in bed to rest

This cold-averse body

Kept company by its wearied soul.

A life-changing condition confirmed  

Many seasons before in mid-summer heat

Like flashes of lightning, it just would not quit.

How could the body’s once healthy      

Immune system so divinely designed

Create havoc? Havoc on itself.

This autoimmune deficiency

Will forever be a reality. The body feels

Naked in winter though fully clothed;

A vulnerability I so loathe. If truth be told,

I long for the vigor of youth,

And yet made peace

With a life at the edge of winter.

Any appearance of spring, I expect to likely

Yield a much different bloom.  

Fighting off bleakness

Is a mental game I’ve played.

I’ve played well and hard. I’ve paid the price

These seven long years

When robbed of normalcy.

Still paying the price

Out of necessity, out of love.

Out of love for a life still filled with so much.

So, I fight. I trudge over bleakness because I must.

Going to the neighborhood pool

Gives respite to bones and joints

In throbbing pain.

Rewarded along the way

When greeted by a snow goose cherry.

This tree, with its coppery-red peeling bark

And scrawny, twisted branches.

Bare and exposed in winter; it calls out to me.

As if to say, I know how it must feel.

Why this tree goes by the name

Of snow goose cherry is not clear at all.

It bears no resemblance to a goose.

It bears no recognizable fruit.

It stands in the land

Where snow doesn’t fall.

A riddle of sorts, an intriguing diversion.

The lonely looking tree mysteriously named

With a not-so-impressive bearing,

Is mostly ignored in the cold.

Except today

When the snow goose cherry,

As if overnight transformed, 

Is now fully in bloom after a long, hard winter.

What a sight to behold!

A regal canopy of white delicate flowers

Astonishes in the edge of winter

At the brink of spring.

I lingered as if in a trance,

Awed by such transformation.

A mild chill of morning air and

A blossoming snow goose cherry tree

Colluded no less

To enkindle bliss like no other.

Pain momentarily subsumed

As there seems to be

This mysterious link that binds

Winter, the tree and what ails me.

Poem & Photo ©Lu Sobredo
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED