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LIFE HAD OTHER PLANS

Spring 2023

Today feels like
a good day to write 
a poem, and
that is strange, because
I had other plans. 

I did not expect this year
the slow decline 
down a gently sloping mountain
of verdant green grass, 
into a flat-bottomed valley filled
with the deep river of oblivion,
obscured by fog. 
That was never in the outline. 
That was never the itinerary. 
But life had other plans. 
(It always does.) 

Out my window is a citrus tree:
it might qualify as topiary if
it were just a little less 
free
form. 
Shoulder-high, in a beige-glazed 
pot, it was supposed to be a 
gift of cumquats, fresh 
fruit in season hanging 
like topaz
earrings 
amid 
glossy-leaved hair;
Alack. The tree is a calamondin, 
identical 
in appearance but
bitter 
in fruit. 
Life, it seems, had other plans. 

Below the pot, eight yellowed 
leaves curl on the patio tiles, 
the last scars of the tree’s battle
with hail, some four-and-change
months ago, finally discarded—
like growth. 
Like healing. 
Like life had other plans 
for this tree than death by assault
from the sky. 

I love everything, today, my current
view included:
Roses! I love roses! 
Tea! I love tea!
My journal! I love my journal! 
Dog walkers! I love dog walkers! 
Poetry! Don’t mind if I do! 

What I really love is this: 
Having shed the yellowed scars of 
assault-by-elemental-force, 
I can once again see the sky, 
and it is blue. 
Cerulean. 
I didn’t dare assume today 
would see such steep contrast
to yesterday’s overcast skies. 
But life
had other plans.