The colour of the day-blind stars

I bought a potted pear tree when

the house was being dressed

for sale. The fashion was for trees.

The character of branch and leaf

was missing trunk to form a tree,

still premature and brief.

Springs now since that house changed hands,

and when I feel among the soil,

how I appreciate the scale

of what it means to pare a tree.

I dream when hewing stands of woods,

as blossoms merge with wind and rain,

mine is the wound that doesn’t heal.

The red stream of the petal’s blush

against the hazard of the white -

though clipped as a still life and placed,

tamed to a stark convenience,

real white against repainted white -

still Propagates as though a wave,

the tree grown as a stative verb

an endless stream from a red pen,

writing itself like root and vine

ever anfractuous in will.

The hazard flowers drift away

but their pattern will involve

that gardener in dialogue

at least who will not place a tree.

Colour that is a wave, that is a blush, that is a tree,

You could hope to paint the waiting light

That propagates from day-blind stars,

As soon as dare to put a name

to pink that is a gift of living wine.