the path is shovelled as far as the bridge
can we pay the price of Spring ? desperate
birds on the look-out for crumbs can leverage
the cat-free yards while the animals set
on each other and blossoms are crushed-
we are left our loud personal pulse
and smoke fainting from snow - blood hot and hushed
where the creature hardly stained the false
ground - whereas this porphyry quince burgeons
the same as your sakura on Taiwan
despite these first losses to the surgeon
weather - a nurturer we can’t rely on
our challenge here isn’t so much revival
as whether we survive our own survival
Blackwells
Oxford
3 March 2018
The sakura is on Formosa blossoming while the quince tree is on Osney Island Oxford in the snow.