Today I am giving up judgement

Poem by Dana Smith

by Dana Smith 31st March 2023

It drops but not like a knife skittering across the kitchen floor…
The faces across from me: wind- bitten, old and close
as mountain streams bloom in the rose steam
of Hibiscus tea. I wonder how I hadn’t noticed their beauty
in just this way before. Even the dog on its hind legs
is not begging, or being shushed aside. No word of shame
interrupts our silence. What flowers is as fresh as quince
after frost, its bud clear as a drop of rain. Without striving.
Why hadn’t I dropped these judgements a lifetime ago?