Three Poems, by Judith Weyl
How Samara Becomes Samsara
A confusion
of wind helicopters
muddles
spring.
Over fences, organic
waves
overwhelm
yards,
drown
porches,
invade
purple petunia petals.
Flattened wings-
whirligig kisses
spin
across canyons,
hitch-hike people,
steal
wind-weary
rides
on scarab beetles. One
tucked in each tea-green sepal.
Last year’s maple
tree extension
spread
bitter
seed.
A winged fruit-like mess.
Buried
in summer sweet grass
sheaths
reposed.
And now
in droves
these damn twisters
spin in spring
again.
spring in the Minneapolis zendo
whoosh! cold flew away
outside sweet sparrow singing
the window open
When spring knocks, I remember the girl with long red hair
(for Kim)
i
In cold November
I braced myself for wind
like a stick
I propped up against a barely-bent oak.
On trodden
Minnesota ground, dropped leaves
piled in a heap
at the foot of a grey-weathered barn.
Too soon,
for my sweet friend
I lamented,
her fate turned into cancer.
Not fully grown, yet
gone.
In an untoward freeze
a stream no longer moving
silenced.
I cried for her.
I cried for me.
ii
With melting,
spring
knocking at the barn door
releases a melody.
A harmony
with warbling.
From sorrow’s long season I stir.
Not on snow melt, or fallow field.
But in the heart.
Cleansing rain
softens arid ground.
In unobscured April air,
a desolate desert
flowers. Ocotillo cacti
flourish
in a flood of petals, smooth
scarlet
flowing over.