An early sun brought
the crowds, a few
cold days sent them
packing. Warm rays
have now returned,
but there are no
admirers. How quickly
we forget to love.
The blossoms still
hang in beauty,
each petal contains
more fragrance than
a thousand dreams
of those who worship
in abstraction. But
transition will not
wait, all living things
demand attention.
The petals let go
their hold on spring,
as each they must
in appointed time,
and float on wind
in one last choral
flight to dust,
begging to be seen,
like men and women
on parade, in spring
Gary Hanna received the Emerging Artist Fellowship in Poetry from the Delaware Division of the Arts in 2003. He won the Brodie Herndon Memorial Prize in 2002, the Walter Winchell Poetry Contest in 2005 and a Residential Fellowship to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in 2007. Gary is the Director of the Poetry at the Beach reading series in southern Delaware.