Wisteria

It has lost everything.
Last leaves fallen
on teak table, chair
and wooden deck.

But what is it that draws me
to it even more, now
that it has given itself away?

In silence
gray branches arch prayerfully,
as I have seen morning hands
gracefully lift and give offerings.

It is as if finally the pressure
of showing beauty,
providing leafy shelter
and shade has ended.

...and I remember her telling us
of that night in the hospital
when it didn’t matter anymore.
When the will to live for her children
and husband changed
because the pain was too much.

...and she saw at that moment
something about herself,
that one moment when she knew
she could give it all up.
She knew she was more
than all she held onto.

So I am called to these branches
every winter trying to tell me
how much more there is to me.

This is not to say I don’t notice
the first pale buds awakening
in early spring.

And I am transformed in the days
when fragile lavender clusters open,
hang in scented beauty
and bring big black bees
to their steady chanting.

But now I am called to sit
under these bare branches
and like the wisteria,
let the sky in.

About the author

Susan Florence’s career as an artist and writer has been creating gift products, from greeting card collections to lines of giftbooks. “Poetry has been for me a personal way of passage through the years,” she says. “My poems were kept hidden in files ‘to be worked on.’ In 2005 I attended San Miguel Poetry Week and began my pilgrimage into what Stanley Kunitz called, ‘the telling of the stories of the soul.’ This prize gives me tremendous joy and tells my ‘inner poetry judge’ to stand back. Thank you.”