Fuzzed and fuschia and furling.

They are big like Christmas tree lights, fat and ready to pop into brightness, and when the whole tree bursts I will be transfixed, stuck to the spot and staring.



And a postscript, as I sit here with the earliest birds. (Please forgive that I do not know how to make tabs and such things, so you'll just have to figure out how long each of Whitman's ten long lines goes on.)

To a Stranger

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

-- Walt Whitman

Today, I am to wait; I am to see to it that I do not lose that dawn birdsong; I will hear it for you, too, while you are safely sleeping, dreaming perhaps of a cat on a porch in the sun who is dreaming perhaps of a bird in a tree singing a song about a person asleep. Today I am the one sitting alone, waking at night alone, thinking of you. It comes to me as of a dream. (And of course, now you know that today is no longer yesterday, that I am transgressing temporal bounds. As so often, in fact.)