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Perfect Pruning Shears By Linda Leedy Schneider<br />
I am the bright blue Iris that blooms by her<br />
back door. I am as precious as the black tulip<br />
that is rooted in her heart.<br />
Five paper wrapped messages wait on my stalk.<br />
They will open sequentially in this garden<br />
of symmetry. Scatter yellow truth again.<br />
Everyday she comes with golden shears<br />
prunes away the less than pretty,<br />
daffodils withered and wasted<br />
naked tulip stalks<br />
peonies whose heavy heads<br />
have sagged to the soil.<br />
In this garden of symmetry security sameness<br />
every flower must be<br />
the picture on the seed packet.<br />
We flowers think she should--<br />
Let us be!<br />
Tall as the cosmos,<br />
free as the one eyed daisy,<br />
rambling like the rose.<br />
She could climb the cherry tree<br />
live in the shifting clouds of beginnings.<br />
Let humming birds nest in her hair.<br />
Be washed by rain until<br />
the golden scissors<br />
grow green.<br />
Author bio: Linda Leedy Schneider, winner of the 2012 Contemporary American Poetry<br />
Prize, is a political activist, poetry and writing mentor and psychotherapist in private<br />
practice. Linda facilitates workshops including The International Women's Writing<br />
Guild's Annual Summer Conference which will be held July 7-14, 2017 at Muhlenberg<br />
College, in Allentown, PA and The Manhattan Writing Workshop which she founded and<br />
has led since 2008. Linda has written six collections of poetry including Some Days:<br />
Poetry of a Psychotherapist (Plain View Press)
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