WINTER
I’m glad that the heart, too, is seasonal.Kerry Hardie
Outside, it’s dipped, not just below zero, but with a wind-chill
of minus ten. The pond outside this window is skinned
with ice. The winter sun glints off is surface, fails
to warm. An absence of birds. And you’re gone, too,
putting my heart in hibernation. Unlike my sister,
the shaggy bear, I doubt it will wake up in spring.
I’m learning that grief is a river, that it sluggishly
flows in the blood. Still, ready or not, spring will come,
with armfuls of lilacs, bleeding hearts, violets.
Green grass. Soft air. How will my heart,
that frozen glacier, be able to bear it?
~Barbara Crooker
