SHOCK AND AWE

The trees have put on their finest
Plumes of bloom.
Each flower bursts.
Blossoms drip  down boughs
In pendulous languor.

Rippling white down creeks
Distant dots in crevasses
Swaths of swirling crimson
Pinks, whites
Each petal plumper ….

On, on,  on it goes—
One hill sports a wide white shawl
undulating at its feet
in luminescent splendor.    

Branches of flowers vased
in living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, desks—
San Francisco signs imploring not to cut—
bathrooms, restaurants, diners,  the
dusky, musky, soft- scented scents
alluring my nose….

And then the final blow:
a weeping plum
an empress of pinks
it's arms stretching as wide
as it is tall
a cumulus canopy of blossom cloud.
A glance and I am captured.