Like a dead tube rose
Upheld in the warm air...
Miraculously whole.

THAW

Blow through me wind
As you blow through apple blossoms....
Scatter me in shining petals over the passers-by....
Joyously I reunite... sway and gather to myself....
Sedately I walk by the dancing feet of children--
Not knowing I too dance over the cobbled spring.
O, but they laugh back at me,
(Eyes like daisies smiling wide open),
And we both look askance at the snowed-in people
Thinking me one of them.


PORTRAITS

I

MOTHER

I

Your love was like moonlight
turning harsh things to beauty,
so that little wry souls
reflecting each other obliquely