Natural Selection by Helga Kidder

To be a branch that lifts and grows

toward the sky as waxy-white blooms

open to lemony scents.

To be striped roots of crepe myrtle

snaking toward the stone terrace,

furred with moss, like words

years have forgotten.

To be bleeding hearts blossoming

with yellow stamen next to lilies

of the valley, breathing in fragrance,

lingering in the love of bells.

To laugh like a bell, clear and sweet,

or be the branch that bends in the rain,

soaks in songs of wings,

the gentle brush of a feather.

Like love that quietly slides between

sticks and stones and disappears

in the maze of laurel and sourwood.

Survival of the fittest, the blood's surge

seeking otherness. Words that retreat

into a glass globe someone will shake.

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Helga Kidder lives in the Tennessee hills with her husband.  She has four poetry collections, Wild Plums, Luckier than the Stars, Blackberry Winter, and Loving the Dead which won the 2020 Blue Light Press Book Award.