Lesson during a Pandemic

I’m taking walks now

every day

circling our house

several times

out the garage door

back past the bleeding heart

in front of the small rhododendron

near the butterfly bush

which is beginning to sprout

tiny leaves

I stop to count a patch of daffodils

four varieties

twenty-five blossoms

altogether in this bed

more buds to open

more still to come

stepping over branches fallen

from towering tulip trees

carefully scanning the ground

I see sprinkles of tiny red flowers

amid the burgeoning green of grass

I wonder

where did they come from?

who planted them?

how can I find out what they are?

why have I never seen them before?

each day there are still more

each day I ponder the mystery

until Thursday

when the shadow of a large bird

interrupts my study of 

tiny red flowers

I look up from the ground

see the turkey buzzard

just visible above the tree

circling over

the branches of our red maple

which is clad in

tiny red flowers

as yet unshed

before this moment

I have looked at that budding maple

glowing red

every single year

and never really seen it

                        Kate Lydon Varley