Love and Joy We Share

My friends, how do I love you? I love you as the vibrant pulse of life.

I love you as a wild ginger.

A bleeding heart.

As cactus, cloven, we know not why.

And staghorn ferns, as well .

As nettles, with their spines we learn to live with.

Veronica seed–a heart that follows bloom.

I love you as I love the violets

and spring beauties popping up before I know that winter passed.

And piggybacks, producing life on life.

I love you as I love the very shapes of nature, even stumps.

And heartwood deep beneath the sap.

I love you as a dewdrop–fragile, fleeting, with me now.

Be mine, with me–and I, today, am yours.