Cimelia

By Adele Lewis

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The tulip tree (ah, that again)

Is into its ballyhoo

Only yesterday its armfuls of promises

Held close against the cold

Curved and bent, piercing the blue

Lying alongside blue

Rubbing blue

Soft in sunlight

Then the breeze and petals

Candent in earthshine

Opened wide.

Less spectacle this time

Its cupping April echoes

Blown against the rainlight

Gray cobweb of old skin

Muting silver blooms afire to somber madder.

Love still so willing

Sheds it yearning plumule

In porcelain evenings petals rain

With lucid ache.

Adele grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. After graduating college she worked as a journalist and editor. She moved to Spokane in 1981 where she earned an M.A. in Counselling/Psychology at Gonzaga, worked as a therapist for Spokane County and wrote poetry. She now lives in Portland with her husband.

The original print version of this article was headlined "Cimelia"