I will buy for you
a cedar box, red,

fragrant when rain falls,
broad and steady,

and plant it
near the crocuses and the daffodils

that were tossed among fresh sprouts
of day lilies, and in time,

that will sleep under the vigils
of June’s deep clematis

and our red-then-green-
then-red-again maple.

And upon it
you will wait and pray,

your flowered necklace
never wilting, your hennaed hand

forgiving each day
its storms, its whips

of wind, its white cold,
its dying, its deformities,

its birthing, its longing
that swirls on end around you.