Liturgy of Cut Forsythia

We dissect our tangerine-skin to it’s etymological etching, 
peeling until we are beautiful and expansive,
like a flowering tree that doesn’t know how to keep itself warm, 
fingernails releasing essential oils from corpse-memory.  

Under spring’s uncompromising light each leaf is exhaustingly complex. 
So cut your forsythia, save your gold for cloudy days. 
Remember God made us ugly and abstract so we could domesticate fire.