InterBoard Poetry Competition

CARE OF THE WEEPING CHERRY
      Allen Weber
      (The Frugal Poet)

It bows now only when it needs:
Brother, I’ve come to remove the ties

from your memorial tree. Its blooms
are early, pale pink under last night’s dust

of snow; this morning smells of fertile earth;
a starling cocks his head, eyes me from the fence,

near and unafraid.

Judge David Biespiel’s comments: “The poem does what an elegy ought to do--get distracted & let the Other perform the rites of loss.”

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About the InterBoard Poetry Competition
Archive of IBPC Winners
Honorable Mention, April 2006

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