LETTERS TO MINNEHAHA CREEK: XVII

This spring green,
color as precise

as belonging and fear.
My son snuggled with me

last night after a nightmare
saying, “I will hold still

to stay with you.”
Bleeding hearts are blooming.

I don’t mind exchanging bare branches
for the sight of such love.

~~~~~ 


If I did not know better
I might think the bubbles

on your surface kiss
the sky. Branches and leaves

rustle along your edge,
an enraptured audience applauding.

But you do not perform
for anyone. I sit on a rusty

sewer cap surrounded
by purple flowers and crab grass.

Back to the traffic
of Minnehaha Parkway,

shadow from a shrub
sways along my page.

I know you do not mind
living in these pages.


~~~~~


Everything is greening
at the speed of light.

Creeping Phlox
and Creeping Charlie

surround the yellow
polka-dot-dandelions,

a bedspread over the dirt.
Sidewalks full of tree seeds,

petals, and cut grass.
Lilacs are coming. 


About Victoria Peterson-Hilleque:
Victoria Peterson-Hilleque lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her poems have appeared in Summit Avenue Review and Priscilla Papers. Her books How to Analyze the Works of Sylvia Plath and other titles were published by ABDO Publishing Company. She is a co-host on the weekly radio show: Doug Pagitt Radio: Religious Radio for the Not Quite Right, and you may read her Write On blog and listen to podcasts of the show at www.dougpagittradio.com. She also blogs for Emergent Village Voice at www.patheos.com.