The Only News I Understand Comes From Flowers

 At the road’s edge an orange bee orbits the blossoms,

its body juicy, planetary—a Jupiter on the verge of spring.

Five thousand miles away my own flowers stumble with neglect.

Pots of lupine and bear grass first soak, then burn

in the mercury of late March’s stormy glare.

Meanwhile, in Rome, a broken rainbow umbrella sighs

from a garbage can next to the Colosseum.

A billboard shouts “Hello, giallo!” over the drum of hailstones.

At home neon sour grass weaves itself into every green space

and the gray mug I left on my desk watches the sun rise

earlier each day, still holding a forgotten mouthful of tea.

Two chickadees hover by the front door, considering whether

an empty house might be a good place to nest. The astronomers say

for every planet that circles a star, there are ten more that wander, sunless.

Still, they say, life might bloom in the dark.

Today on Earth it is spring everywhere and still I miss everything

as it blossoms around me. At home they save a friend’s ovaries

and fix a second grader’s heart, and policemen sprint

past school billboards covered with construction-paper penguins.

Here in Italy the only news I understand comes in flowers,

each headlines a twig snatched up and spirited off

by crows with bodies the color of rain-heavy clouds.

Along the hilltop road my son’s small hands take photos

of each unfamiliar flower to translate blooming into something

that feels like home.  Forsythia. Birdeye speedwell. Dog rose.

Spotted dead nettle. Mouse-ear cress. Each understood word

a pearl on the tongue. We pass their roundness back and forth all day

until the snow crust moon rises, shines here and there,

here and there, here and there.