I let myself dissolve into a flowering cherry tree
So that’s how it feels to be almost all the way pink
Orange, magenta, deep purple, periwinkle all had their way with me as well
I rubbed a Lamb’s Ear leaf on my cheeks as I walked and hummed
Through a forest inhabited by roads and houses and buildings and church bells
But life has its way and bursts through the cracks
Like the childlike song that erupted from me at a cat hiding in a bush
I didn’t notice the owner on the porch until she spoke
Her voice carrying the contagion of my bliss and reflecting it back:
“You’re awfully happy today!”
Awfully…
Awe
Fully
I’m in
With the flowers, the cat, the forest, the city
The heartbreaks and triumphs
The men, the women, the still-figuring-it-out
The parents and babies
And grown up kids who need to move home
My heart is exposed and I can’t turn back
So I feel
And I heal
And it feels like dying to be this alive
To be this pink and this orange and this magenta
May
I?