I’ve gone back and significantly edited a poem written back in the spring of this year. I was seriously not pleased with it then. That was also the period of my writing where I was under therapist suggested non-edit mode. In other words, I was supposed to just write write write without editing myself. Now, I’m going back over some of those posts on this Vermont week. Contemplative. Thinking about this journey.

I truly wish I’d pulled my car over and taken a photo of that tree in its grief-encompassed moment.

For now, it sits only in my memory. Perhaps it will happen again next spring and I can do a drive by. Perhaps not.

I hope that this rewrite captures some of that mourning in pain beauty that exists in the world.

Original version here

Cherry Blossom in Mourning (Rewrite)

A blanket of fallen flowers covers
The once whistling green grasses

Circles of pink and red
Surrounding the tree
Bleeding vibrant color
covering the spring ground

The overnight rains were tears of mourning
The splendor of color and bright new life shed

Branches wet and heavy lean down down down
Reaching reaching reaching
The ground always beyond their grasp

Unable to touch their former glory
Weeping morning dew in sadness
Grieving for the former majesty

#OTR50
193 Days to go.

© Randi Sumner