Don’t say it
to speak would let fall
the perfect-ripe fruit so heavy
its juices so desiring to explode
into the world, whether by bird’s beak,
or splattered below, soaking with
sweetness the soil that birthed it.
Word-ripened, thoughts become ideas
shared or assumed, take on a life
independent from what you dreamed,
hoped it would be, envisioned
with quiet imagination. Speak not too soon,
or birds will carry your nectar in their beaks,
flapping wings in the wind,
out of sight, away from you.
You cannot say what it would have become,
can only grieve the space
where it should have lived,
sweetness blossoming in your mouth,
sending seeds below earth to regenerate
next year’s yield.
No, you will have to trust that
the wind carried seed farther than
your feet can go, to places and people
unseen, whom you will not know,
nor will they know that you loved
the fruit the birds stole from you
and yet somehow germinated new
life to love in far-flung places.