Cherry Tree at Dartmouth and Park
Facing headwinds
at the intersection of Dartmouth and Park
she stands
rooted between concrete squares
She ignores
windblown wrappers
the lifted leg of a stray mutt
lovers’ initials cut into her bark
March spits snow at her
Her black branches
are no shelter
against gray storm skies
Week after week
we walk by her
heads bent into the wind
steeped in misery, oblivious
Until the day
perched on her highest branches
a brown wren sings─
Look up!
She’s burst into blossom
pink and fragrant
as sunrise
Elizabeth Fletcher
Elizabeth Fletcher’s poems have appeared in Ariel Chart, The Cape Cod Times, Spaceports & Spidersilk, The Schuylkill Valley Journal, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Book of Matches, and The Ekphrastic Review, among others. She was a 2023 Science fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association Rhysling Award nominee and a 2021 Pushcart prize nominee. Her nature essays about sea turtles and Snowy owls have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer.