The morning sky is clouding up

and what is that tree,

dressed up in white? The fruit

tree, French pear. Sulphur-

yellow bees stud the forsythia

canes leaning down into the transfer

across the park. And trees in

skimpy flower bud suggest

the uses of paint thinner, so

fine the net they cast upon

the wind. Cross-pollination

is the order of the fragrant day.

That was yesterday: today is May,

not April and the magnolias

open their goblets up and

an unseen precipitation

fills them. A gray day in May.