Dogwood
The dogwood whispers
into bloom, white cross blossoms
pronounced in a hush,
words chosen with care.
Where the pear and cherry gush
in loquacious snow –
falls of profusion,
the dogwood, reticent, spare,
says this, and this, and
now that, and just so
– a haiku poet, black-barked,
slender-curved, meting,
out blood-tipped bracts – not
blooms – like syllables. Outside
my window today
before dawn, our tree’s
sparse stanzas of white glow blue,
like December’s snow
at dusk. In this light,
they seem to float, a flutter
of shimmering moths
drawn to the wrought black
splay of twig and limb. A breeze
touches the branches,
and the tree fractures
into jostling planes of light,
geometrical,
shifting silences.