Fogwood [edit3]

[dukealien]

edit3;

March Carolina dogwoods
float popcorn-blossomed
between dew-grassed earth
and misty sailcloth sky

as if trees were fountaining
whiteful joy from slender trunks
through boughs and branches deep
into breath-held overlay

or bashful Sun cascaded
flowers down each laden stem
freshly nourishing
this ancient newborn world.

---

I've done what I could with all the good advice, but discarded some of it.  My excuse is that to get alliteration/assonance going can take more than two bites of the apple, as it were, and that requires more words.  Thanks, as always, to all the critics.

Defending "were" in S2, I see this as subjunctive flowing from "as if."  It's true this is in the present (would be "are") but not the actual present.  A niggle, and quite likely wrong; maybe it's dialect.