Poem: Dance Recital by Maureen Ash

Dance Recital

Spring in the garden and sweetly, bravely
the blooms venture forth as now
small girls in jewel tones
clasped to moms and dads,
backed by a smitten gleam of grandparents,
walk from the parking lot to the school doors
and the wind upends pink, fragile petals,
a tiny girl skitters sideways like a dust bunny– 
blown on the stiff sail of her skirt.  
Which is it?  Each spring
the garden’s dead, snow-pressed leaves 
part like dark curtains, 
the children emerge as if mined out of 
our buried hope
and for a short time the childlike flowers,
the flowery children, 
do their dances, all of us caught
softhearted and grateful
on the warm tiptoe of spring.

Maureen Ash