12.18.13

i am a cicada in the spring,

shedding the skins I've needed for protection

one after another.

i do not even feel them slide away.

i do not know they are gone,

until i feel a slight chill, and then the lightness

that is a gift of their absence.

i am an oak,

strong and still,

but all the same stripped of life, or what appears to be life,

each autumn.

the process is terrifying.

but wait: in the spring there is light again,

and warmth, and life returns to my weary branches,

abundance equal but opposite to the intensity of my dormancy.

i don't know if i like it,

but i do know that it does not matter

if i do or if I do not.

life is perpetual and inevitable transformation

and I wonder if the flower retains the memory of being a seed.