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January in Columbus

Outside grey sky and clouds so slight they disappear
when, not quite distracted, I turn to the trees
and watch shivering branches for whom waiting means
holding oneself and all the leftover rain.

What’s hard to believe is that they’re really blossoms
like coffee filters, still silhouetted crowns
that have already done it—opened up and drank.
But then, what else was there to do?

The setting sun appears in the tallest branches
glowing like certain fog and the sky, lighter now,
so easily distinguished from the clouds.

When we die, who becomes a tree?

I watched like there was something to be said,
the very air breaking open, spilling petals
of last year, this year
the same for cherry pies made of thawing.

Then, as an answer, a photograph of hands

a leaf large enough to fill them

the difference between wanting meaning and holding it.

Waiting means something, has to.