I can't help feeling the magnolia is foolish
getting her hopes up, budding
in the halflight of December.
Spring is such a distant dream
it might never come.
Even as the mercury sinks
deep into the fact of winter
she’s planning what she’ll wear in April.

Night as thick and dark as molasses
brisk air carrying spores of decay

but who am I to judge?
My roots are ghosts
untethered
from what the land knows.
I am free to withhold my buds
to delay my blossoming
to politely refuse to be glorious,
astounding,
ignore the urge to burst forth in wild hues
and fall to pieces, and be a mess.
What do I know?
Maybe nothing is possible
without this outrageous optimism
when all else says die

this beautiful, reckless hope.