Lynn Edge
Tivoli, Texas, USA

For Our Son

mosquitoes hum
the coastal breeze settles
into night

It surprises me the cypress tree is still alive after ten years in this foreign environment. Our son wanted to plant it in his backyard, but at a foot deep, he hit rock. We planted the slender sapling here, far from the streams and rivers of its native hill country.

During a three-year drought, my husband and I took turns watering the cypress. We spent more time caring for it than all our other trees combined.

month of rain …
behind the lawn mower
windrows

Now its branches are filled with seed balls and its tips gleam a vivid lime. In the upper reaches, a bagworm has made a cocoon of twigs glued together like a miniature beaver dam.

three split dessert
the waitress brings
a whole pie