The Wisteria Bush

Because of a welcoming new guest inside him
whose loving he adopts as his own with gratitude,
this year, after living with his wisteria bush
and its exuberant blooms for almost two decades

he has begun daily turning off the front walk
to cross the yard to the viny tangle by the curb
to lift bare branches and inspect the tiny bulges
of still-contained buds, concerned for a while

at their closed surface and unchanging size,
but relieved at last to witness some miniscule
wings displayed here and there. So a few times
a day, now, the welcoming new ghost in his

heart is coaxing the green flecks and the pale-blue
gems of petal-clusters into the light of what is.
People, of course, were the first odd miracles
he had loved, friends whose inexplicable

inward cascades of jewel-tones gave rise to
such unlikely joys. Then animals, in whose eyes
he engaged the suffering and grace of their kind
as he entered the impeccable wilderness in which

they address us from beyond the cultivation
of words. And now, after sixty years seeking
his way in the fundamental story, he finds he can
recognize, at last, in a familiar plant

not only soothing color and beauty, but blessing.
Morning and afternoon, he steps from the walk
between his front porch and his car to be near it,
its stems and branches and leaves and flowerings

a company he wants to know better, to greet
as it flourishes. Perhaps, in some future year,
he will find one more lover in himself, the one
who encounters minerals as if they were stars.

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