You astounded me
that ice-locked day: April
climbing the stairs
your face, a blossom,
soft blue dress / the long
stalk of your body;
you were the first
wild flower after the slowly
receding winter.
I didn’t know you well. You’d
never spoken of the sleepless nights
when you stood guard
by your dying husband;
nor of the battles to kill your certain conviction
that you lacked vision, lacked strength.
Now I know what you were:
a pasqueflower / pale
blue prairie flower
shaped like a cup,
full of ancient allusions
to all you’d done /
Paschal flower: propitiation /
passage / Passover / deliverance.
Passefleur: surpass. All that.