Driving to My Country Church on Palm Sunday

Spring prompts lists as I drive:

the daffodil yellow sun

swaths of forsythia

wind in the greening willow

Lists to make sense:

of quince, of tulip tree,

of creekwater the color neither of stone nor sky.

Lists that won’t convey the soul

of matter:

the pith of peach

the stark of forests dark

without the dogwood tree

the daffodils broken riotous free from

a dooryard—the farmwife long dead

the farmhouse fallen away—

to bloom on the hillside

in the shape of a cross.

Maddening prideful lists,

begging:

to be rewritten

with verbs, drama, kindred

to be shredded, cast as confetti

to the funnel cloud

In lists, I limp

after the image of my Creator,

now and ever, the best that I can do.

The thunder subsides,

and I pass through a shower

of petals.