The Next Best Time: An Anniversary Poem

Betsy Joseph

October 15, 2023

On this sunlit afternoon

with March gentle as a lamb,

a particular Chinese proverb comes to mind:

“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.

The next best time is now.”

You and I were not together twenty years ago,

so I could not plant a kiss on your lips.

Now, though, we are at last together

and so I plant twenty kisses on your smiling face

to make up for the years missed

plus one more, 

for this next best time.

Betsy Joseph lives in Dallas and has poems which have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry books published by Lamar University Literary Press: Only So Many Autumns (2019) and most recently, Relatively Speaking (2022), a collaborative collection with her brother, poet Chip Dameron.

In addition, she and her husband, photographer Bruce Jordan, have produced two books, Benches and Lighthouses, which pair her haiku with his black and white photography.