blossoms brushed from bent limbs

in my hair, tangled with sweat

and pollen; the heat of first mowing.

Air tender and urgent

as moments we shared

on a night-lit stone porch along

turned Oxford meadows, when April

was dawn in Eden, first and new.

House wrens burble their down-song,

screened by poplars. Overhead, a

cardinal, flush with attitude,

follows my back and forth

curiously, scanning for seeds.