I beseech you peach, clench me into the sweetness of your reaches, Peter Davidson, “Peaches”
I have so much hope in my peach tree in spring—
its spray of pink. Look inside the blooms, the pistil lashes,
the red shadows. Close your eyes, the faint perfume of peach.
I have so much fear in a late frost so much frustration at work undone,
the throwing on of sheets the despair of the snowing down of pink petals
before they set their fruit.
When the frost is gone, I still have hope for the blossoms
that remain, and wait, watch them drop and blow away
in the wind. There’s so much beauty in this tree,
its curves, its bends, its dance as it bushes out with leaves,
even in summer—a deep burgundy, a red as pungent in color
as the blossoms’ scent.
This tree so relatively small, yet sturdy enough to take a strong wind,
and when small fruit dot the branches, hanging like Christmas baubles
How can I not but hope?
—
Carla Schwartz’s poems appear in The Practicing Poet and her collections Signs of Marriage, Mother, One More Thing, and Intimacy with the Wind. Learn more: carlapoet.com, or all social media @cb99videos. Recent/upcoming curations: Great Weather for MEDIA, Contemporary Haibun Online, Modern Haiku, Paterson Literary Review, North Dakota Quarterly, One Art, Rattle Magazine, Sheila-Na-Gig, Spank the Carp, The MacGuffin, and Leon Literary Review. Carla Schwartz received the NEPC Cummings Prize.
