I Tell Myself This When I Am Afraid

My lilac tree is in bud,

at first it demonstrates its revival

in the melancholy of heavy plum,

but soon it will blossom barrelled blooms

of a lighter shade,

I tell myself this when I am afraid.

That misplanted ash tree on the street corner

is dead, the only Spring it witnesses is the toil

of an unseen bird who has built a nest,

precarious, in empty branches,

how life clings, how hope has stayed,

I tell myself this when I am afraid.

There are peacock butterflies

who have awoken from a threshold 

somewhere between sleep and death,

scaled wings have survived the search of frosts,

reds and purples that no winter could fade,

I tell myself this when I am afraid.

The river is deeper than you might think:

I have never seen the bottom of it;

its bed obscure in dark weeds, 

but the sky and clouds look at their reflection in it

as if it was a mirror, and it coils the light

and water to bind them, 

here, new compounds of magic are made,

I tell myself this when I am afraid.

Image my own, of my lilac tree buds.