Just now the sweet magnolia blooms.

Delayed by unseasonably cooler days

And nights of chilly starshine,

But just in time, as a bit of the gloom and doom

Gives way, as the Eyebright and the Feverfew

Begin to shoot up, through the soil

And start to leaf,

My heart skips a beat to the tune

Of the late bloomer.

And as I smell the intoxicating ivory spray

Of magnolia on its wedding day,

I hesitate to hope and dare

To say it waited just for me.

-jenn