​WELCOME TO A NEW DAY

PART OF WHERE THE POEM CAME FROM
Emotions: Calm, frustration, joy
Memory: A beautiful boat full of plants and flowers docked near our place. Walking along the pier several times, past that boat, and feeling how very quiet it was.

WELCOME TO A NEW DAY

If the cherry tree were in blossom like this always,
maybe we would not weep at the losses
 
the silences.
 
How a boat moored in the harbour is
quiet now. A friend inside it, or not
 
inside it
 
eats dumplings, sips soup, sleeps away
from the people she loves in case
 
by breathing
 
too closely on their soft skin,
too near to be safe
 
she kills them.
 
A white bloom is sudden, a shock
of life, like birth, like the birth
 
of a little girl
 
in my arms, something uncertain
and beautiful as a cloud
 
or the sun
 
triumphant from behind
a cloud. “Welcome to the world”
 
I told her
 
welcome to a new day.
 
And now, two people in dinosaur
suits rush past on
 
rollerblades
 
when the rest of the world
has stopped moving.