An Almond Blossom Life

Tree limb bending in the morning,
Winter grasses stiff and waiting,
cold, ice-flow afternoon.
Or maybe it’s a new day dawning as they do,
sucking chi up into the core of the bones.

I was a cut out,  filled with stuffing,
a matched up crazy quilted scarecrow
living a see-through life.

So,

I grab a 10 pound pack and a forty dollar bike
and head off towards the Adriatic.
Hills of scrunched-up fruit trees in pink and white,
so happy you can taste the almond blossoms.
Stradas Provinciales tunneled with poplars.
There's a cotton-candy Ferris Wheel the first night out,
a calliope singing Verdi in the popcorn wings.

And it wasn’t that long ago either.