by Paul Hina
else's
tree
161
i've watched the pinkest blooms
of spring wither away into greener
leaves,
and time moves imperceptibly
away from me trying to find
hints of your kisses
like sifting through the dirt for long
gone petals,
the memory is the tree that holds
the bloom,
the limb that holds tightly to those
old flowers,
trying hard not to drop them,
to lose them in this deepest,
darkest dirt
162
i've been waiting to see you again,
to speak about your hair out loud,
feel its softer whispers wipe across
my face—as breath or softest fingers—
to listen to your lips lay down little
lullabies, letting a tiniest kiss sleep
in our warmer hands, hold it for days
like today when poems seem elsewhere,
hiding wherever you are, tangled in
your private, perfect ordinariness
163
she is wet with rain, dewy skinned
and bright eyed with the wonder of
newly awakened storms, and though
my hands are warm, she shivers to
the touch, and as i slip my hands up
and down the goosebumps she breathes
out—her wind dripping on my lips, cool
and like the snow's softest, most beautiful
droplets were landing on my mouth(kisses
laying across this landscape)—
and more solitary scenes unfold before us
and we will walk here for a long, long time,
kicking the painted snow into almost spring's
lilliest petals, making rain from memory