Of course the trees don’t really talk to me. Not in English. Not in cedar, maple or magnolia either. It’s just a way to fill up the awkward silence that first arises at a reunion of forgotten kin.
Ferns, waving me closer against all precautions.
I went to take a picture of the anemones and discovered that it’s giant spider season. They’re bigger than I’ve seen before because, of course. But where were they when they were teenager and toddler spiders? They seem to have landed fully formed. I walk through my yard, pulling web off my face and hands, apologizing for the rude intrusion.
More often than not, the river is made of something other than water. But still, it washes, carries, drowns. And still, we bathe, tread, and sometimes float.
The morning clouds started to burn off and leaves crunched along the sidewalks as families gathered in the park. If you didn’t look too closely at the masks around their chins and didn’t feel too deeply into the cracks in your heart, then it became a sweet Sunday dressed in early fall.
A giant crashes to the ground and releases a sky full of stars.
A month ago these seed pods were bright and ready. Now they’ve done their seed pod jobs and fall in exhausted piles on the sidewalk. Next, they start their work of sticking to shoes and making photographers crouch near the ground where the world smells of dirt and rosemary.
Stick your head in the candy-leafed tree. Walk in the fog-rich air. Take the rose-colored glasses when they’re offered and rest your tired eyes.
The fruit moves away from fruit and becomes a planet, complicated with its own slow implosion and new found beauty.
The maze holds tight but has no ceiling. Look up. The broad, cloudy sky. The edges of rainstorms.
Not lotus. Not iris. Not lotus. Not iris. I couldn’t find the name in my fog brain. Let’s call her monster.
This tree had conjuring to do. Despite their grandeur, I’d never really noticed them before. I turned the corner and was immediately drawn to the grays in their impressive trunk and how humble the large house built beside them looked. I stopped on the sidewalk and watched, wondering who else would show up.
Leaf like a lilly pad, a satellite dish, a star, a cup, a tongue. Flowers with little fingers beckon in the bees and prefer poor soil to rich.
The time comes when, finally, you can see into and through. This is not fragility. It’s a mirror. Wave awkwardly at yourself. Now breathe and release the butterflies.
Again, this. Watch the water lick. Watch the colors gather.
Tracy Burkholder 
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