Tree Poem by robert dickerson

Barely asleep all Winter long on the terrace
our tree (malus sargentii)
frozen into its big, red clod pot, cabled to the rail,
has decided to wake up,
respondent to some
ballsy new admixture of daylight and vernal warmth,
and presses forth red-tongued buds
into the chilly, colorless air
neither too early nor too late-
for despite a cold rain falling today is the first day of Spring.

A thin film of chilly rain
on the porchstone images the tree
which hangs resurgent over the rail
weeping cold tears
into the palisaded square of yard
(lugged and rock-stuck into a sort of Japanese garden
turned blue through winterburn)
of Jesus and Lauren, six flights below.

Everything waits.
The faraway clouds wait to see who'll win the day.
The season waits, preferring to advance in safety.
The flowers wait, restraining their capsules underground
till Winter flees.
This tree waits, in all liklihood for a bird:
blue preferred-would it settle for a grackle-
the one whose foul cackle sounds like the song
of a rusty knifeblade touched to a whetstone?
I wait, too, neither for bus nor train,
but for I know not what-enormous insouciance of a youth,
gone, whose terms I found simple and congenial,
in vain. Tree, let us take good example of you,
Awaiting the new season, fixed, bound and slowly growing.
Always a sapling
pushing forth red-tongued buds
into the clean, colorless air.