久しぶり

Tonight is the first night I can hear the cicadas.
They buzz like tiny generators,
lining the two-lane expressways here
in these gentle green hills.

There are rows and rows of tea bushes
stretching out like infinite pews
while the ocean claps and roars
and salt collides with sand.

Every other house has flowers with neon petals
and every fifth house, a sakura tree.
Petals fly and scatter across the streets
like confetti at a wedding.

The sun peeked over the horizon one last time
before lazily going to sleep
and the moon rose so softly into the blanket of
patched black and quilted stars.

Yesterday a man asked me the word in English
for when trees and flowers and grass bend to the breeze.
And as we looked at the blooming sakura and ume,
I told him, "They sway."

I can feel the change in the air
as winter leaves on vacation.
The people and nature here
celebrate the rebirth of life and all that it brings.

It's spring.