Witch Hazel

 

 

I stand observing

and reflecting before

a delicate shrub

with tiny pink blossoms

I brought a long way

from the garden

of my great-grandparents

 

and planted in the center

of a dense circle

of lily of the valley

to remind me of

where I came from

and who I am.

 

As the pain in my

side pulses from

the incision the surgeon

made to remove

tissue that may have

exploded in growth

and choked off my life

 

I turn and find myself

face to face with

a profusion of mint-

green lamb-soft

leaves unfurling

in morning sun

 

to reveal on

the inside, as they

open, yellow-green

waxy furrows

holding droplets of

rain from the night

 

and beside these

miracles of new

life behold tiny

clusters of copper

and red blossoms

 

wound so perfectly

together they seem

beyond the creative

capacity of the finest

medieval jeweler ever

to live in this world

 

where when one thing

is about to die

another even more

beautiful is born.

 

 

 

 Norbert Krapf, Indiana Poet Laureate 2008-10, has published nine poetry collections, the most recent last year from Indiana Univ. Press, Songs in Sepia and Black and White. This year American Dreams: Border Crossings, seven prose poem cycles, will appear from Mongrel Empire Press. Norbert taught for 34 years at Long Island University, where he directed the C.W. Post Poetry Center. As Indiana Poet Laureate, he stressed the reunion of poetry and music and held a 2011-12 Creative Renewal Fellowship to combine poetry and blues from the Arts Council of Indianapolis, where he has lived since 2004. He was a featured reader at the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival last year.