pausing for breath i gaze up
into blossoming red maples
from one of which a red-
tailed hawk lifts off
the wake-robins’ wine-dark
buds are loosening
gnats circle my head
baffled by my glasses
i can hear a waterthrush
up around the next bend
of the stream that carved
this whole masterpiece of a hollow
though you’d never guess
from the way it breaks
over every rock and log
like something fragile
i push my glasses back up
and resume pulling weeds
for my mother, Marcia Bonta