—with Seamus Heaney’s definition of hope
Winter is the soul shrinking
like the last orange in the lead-glass
fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, and
it’s the scattering of stale bread
on the hard brown ground
for the robin who might come
hop, hop, hopping along. Winter is
stumpy, snow-laden rose bushes, perpetual
alabaster loneliness. Look everywhere
and see abandoned carts and wagons,
winter taking hold like burnt motor oil
on a mangy mutt. Listen closely
to winter’s death rattle in the corn husks
in barn rafters, in the sunken chests
of old men, in the start-ups
of rusty, old pick-up trucks.
But then look to the swell of the grapevine,
the glacier’s groan, the sap oozing
from the pine. Smell the moss, the mold,
the rot when the earth starts to stir
from her sleep. Feel the heart
frolicking like a white-tailed deer
even when the creek is dry. Spring is
the quickening of life. It’s a brightening,
like memories over time. Spring is hope…
something rooted in the conviction
that there is good worth waiting for.
Published in Georgia Poetry Society’s Reach of Song, 2024; photo by author