If I meet you on a spring day

by alice liang

If encounter implies I inadvertently walk towards you 

On a windless spring day,

When you, pedaling your cruiser bike,

Happen to go the opposite way,

Slipping away declares a deliberate dislocation,

The exact angle that parallels glances,

For the breeze to roll through the woods beside you

But not to sweep across your face. 

If congeniality suggests I inadvertently walk towards you 

On a watery spring day,

As the rain dabs the same jocund rhythm 

At the same time in the same place,

Schism announces an inaudible fall,

A slumbering king with a frivolous palm,

That overturns the weltering well to waterlog soggy fields 

But misses the draining pond.

If reconciliation foretells I inadvertently walk towards you

On a cerulean spring day,

Since the air smells like the lawn freshly mowed,

Since the toad we spot does not run away but gazes back,

I could smoothly erase words like child’s play,

And tell you a sycamore could grow so high

As to forget its timeworn roots,

But an ephemeral orchid could not leave behind its base. 

If I meet you on a spring day,

The weather does not matter, nor does our age,

For between the gray skyline and violet clouds

That flock of pigeons always drifts soundly. 

Would I meet you on a spring day?