On Healing

Magnolia trees have been around since dinosaurs roamed the earth.
The dinosaurs are decomposed and gone
but the magnolia tree still blooms every spring
outside my parents’ house
beside the driveway
where, without asking,
the first boy took something that wasn’t his
and then decided he didn’t want it after.

Sometimes the world implodes,
feels like a comet struck it,
or at least it feels like it when you’re fifteen
and sometimes you wish everything
had already been fossilized in volcanic ash.

Sometimes midwest winter can feel so long and lonely
because we spend so long uncertain if it has actually ended.

The magnolia tree always seems to be jumping the gun,
the way I might want to,
its buds pushing into chilly March morning.
I’ve never known a winter it didn’t seem to start too early
leaving some of the buds brown and frozen on the ground,

but the tree begins to bloom anyway,
looks imperfect, but is right on time,
even if midwest winter is not ready for it
even if the seasons themselves have a hard time letting go.

I wonder if trees can feel their history every spring
the way we do when love tries to touch the heart again
after a harsh, perhaps unexpected, hibernation.

Babe, when you reach for me and I hesitate or shrink
please remember
I’m still learning how not to fear the cold snap,
learning how to let buds bloom and fall if they need to,

still learning how to live in season.

Abby Bland writes and lives in Kansas City, Missouri where she is the current program director for the Kansas City Poetry Slam. She has a degree in English from William Jewell College and is currently working on her masters. She is a multi-time finalist on the Kansas City Slam stage and competed on the 2018 Nationals team and the 2019 Rustbelt Regional Team.