Shadbush In May \ Full May Moon

Nancy:  Shadbush – shadblow – sugar pear – rarely on lists of “must have” ornamentals.  But we who live with it love it.

Shadbush In May

Because every road

every hillside

every streambank

every shoreline

every dooryard

every woods’ edge

froths and foams

we talk to strangers

at the gas pumps

at the postoffice

at the cash register

at the lunch counter

did you

have you

isn’t it

up my way

out by East Stream

for a whole week

no wind

no rain

the flowers last

no one remembers anything like it

oh, we say, oh

we talk to strangers

Alan:  Every Spring it seems, for one magical night, the shadbush have the world, and the lovesick moon, all to themselves.   

Full May Moon

This night

in the old fields

in the rough fields

in the lost fields

every sugarpear tree

stands up

spreads its arms wide

like a child wearing a sheet,

tilts its head back,

mouths, “Oooooo...”

Tomorrow, they’ll hold baskets

of tiny pink shells, cages

demure with pale butterflies:

tomorrow – for a week.

Then they’ll green; then,

for a moment, crimson;

then, when children

in towns and villages and suburbs

roam house to house begging for sweets,

they’ll take off their clothes, slowly,

under another open-mouthed moon,

whispering, “Oooooo...”

“Shadbush In May” first appeared in Fencing Wildness (Slow Dancer Press, 1999)