Let Spring Come Slowly
Stones
are
aching
under ice —
no river runs free
in the whispered winter silence,
where the earth's bones ache deep with cold, longing for reprieve
from chained branches, jagged, fractured,
and delicate death
of frosted
flowers,
left
dry.
Let
spring
slowly
grace these woods,
let the sun's comfort
pierce the gray snow gently, gently,
giving the weary earth time to wake and warm its feet.
Hope sleeps here in the rusted leaves,
ferns curled beneath in
fetal sleep,
aching
for
mud.
