Prune

In early spring we'll cut back 
branches before their flowering.

Such practices come out of the belief that
without hardship there can be no sweet flowering—

But it isn't always true that no joy can come 
out of other states short of flowering.

Of the silences of despair, poverty, or war:
no one willingly embraces these for their flowering.

On either side of a border, families yearn for news:
their loved ones alive, somehow even flowering. 

Tell me what parts require cutting off and 
suturing, to bring a dead state back to flowering.