A Tree in Blossom

Tina Zhu

how can I let you come across me
in the moment I am most beautiful?        for this,
I have stood before the Buddha      pleaded for five hundred years
pleading for him to tie our earthly bonds together


and so the Buddha turned me into a tree
growing beside the path traced by your fate
now I flower fully in the sunlight
each blossom a longing from an old life

when you come close        please, listen carefully
that trembling of leaves is the passion I wait with
and when at long last you pass by, unknowing
what falls and covers the ground behind you


oh, my friend        those are not petals
they are my heart, withered away