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Wisteria’s blooming above the gate
with heavy blossoms borne by every shoot
and it begins to bend beneath the weight
of lavender racemes that hang like fruit.
Its wrist-thick vines grip tight the posts and swell
within the grape-stake fence gaps, an embrace
of many years that’s shaped the vine to fill
the narrow gaps between the posts and stakes.
Time shapes us thus to fit the place we choose,
rounds us here, bends us thus to fit just so.
We hang fast to the things we love and know.
And like this gnarled old vine, my life has fused
to house and street and little seaside town
and they have made me what I am right now.