I beheld the tree

I beheld the tree

With its fragile white flowers,

What kind I can’t recall but

I’m sure it will come to me

It is in my garden

After all.

It has flowered overnight

How could it have happened

Just like that

Without fanfare.

There are times in early spring

When the world is alive

With colour

Bursting with life.

It can be a humbling experience

To sit for a moment and watch

The progression

From one season into another

A slow march.

I am reminded of ice and snow

The painful trek of nomads

Traversing an ice sheet

In search of summer.

When a dystopian landscape

Is sharply defined

An ice-deep beauty

More dead than alive

But never fully expired.

What happened to the expanse of Tolstoy

The magic of Bulgakov

The soviet dream?

Tolstoy freed his servants

And Bulgakov was born in Ukraine.

The trek will end in tears.

Frozen rivers on hollow cheeks

Paper-thin skin

Dreams torn to pieces

There is no end to the folly

Make amends, not war.

If I was Napolean

I would stop to look at the blossom

Smell the flowers

Remember spring on the Seinne

I can’t help but be transported

Not to St Helena

But home.

There is something about spring

It gets under the fingernails

Into the skin

Paints itself into the fabric

Of life

The impudence, to assert itself

So quietly

But with an earthy inevitability

An earnestness

That brooks no argument.

It is in its nature

To bloom

And I will be forever in its debt

For the enduring bounty

Of its gift