Memory's Blossoms

“What a strange thing!/ To be alive beneath cherry blossoms.”

― Kobayashi Issa, Poems

So many, simple pleasures are destroyed

By anxious reading of ingredients;

Palm oil, invertase and sulfites deployed

To make a sweet confection, shock parents

But the sweet simplicity of the past

Remains pristine and shining in my mind:

When each bite seemed more luscious than the last

And crunchy delight left all cares behind

A toxic lump it might seem now to be

But naïve teeth bite through threats of decay

To taste a cherry blossom was, for me

A way to make holy a profane day

I know thee now, diabolical lure

But for a lad’s ills, you were a sweet cure