You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.
—Alain de Botton
Perhaps they are not beautiful, the choke
cherry bushes all a-blossoming
beside the road. I never used to think
much of their drooping blooms all flopping, moping,
sagging from the limbs like limp white notes
gone flaccid falling off their staffs. And when
out strolling, no one sniffs the air and thinks
oh! the chokecherries! how sweet the odor!
No. But maybe it’s because I’m aging,
maybe cause I’m sagging, too, or maybe
cause life’s walloped me this year, I ran
today from bush to bush and plunged my face
in clumps of bloom and breathed them in, inhaling
bliss, white petals cradled in my hands.