Time, It Waits For Me

photo by lizzie rice

Time, It Waits For Me

 by 3rd year zoey stephens

There’s a crepe myrtle that waits for me in Northwest Georgia

Come spring, it'll be time for me to trim its leaves

And fell its limbs from last year’s growth

So it can climb higher than the year before

Its white buds will bloom and blow over the pathways

Lord, I wish I could blow away with them

Let go of my most beautiful blossoms

Do they make me that pretty anyway? 

I can’t make it home again before spring

Do you think the tree will still wait for me?

How can I grow higher if my soul is rooted in red clay

And my body is a hundred miles away with no water

I guess I’ll stay sick with my overgrown limbs and slump into the earth

I must not want wellness well enough 

I see myself just like that tree, unkempt and untended

Stagnant forever on the threshold of winter and spring, scared to step across

I got a call last wednesday’s noon 

That crepe myrtle waits for me still, but it doesn’t wait alone

Its limbs were felled by my grandmother in my absence

And a weight was lifted off my chest like the weight of excess branches cut down