Shuffling into a summer night
softened by the curling petals
of ninetieth-year gardenias
who though grizzled and drooping
still know how to glow,
and an insistently tapping shower,
something in me shifts.
Perhaps, a breeze whispers,
life is worth it all.

When the first star parts the lace
knitted by maples leaning with age,
it illuminates a space in my heart
I had no idea was still available.
As rain begins falling for real,
so, at last, do my tears.

Not every sadness washes off
Well-meant words seldom penetrate.
But nature knows the wisdom of airing
and bathing our scars while leaving
growth that helps prevent wounds
from re-opening.

Breathing deep, I go back in,
steeled by a whisper from a ho-hum moon.
Sight and hearing are back
and the scent I have on is a knock-out.