Everything seems impossible
To the soaked grass beneath the melting snow.
And the leafless trees keep reaching
Into the blue sky, hopelessly.
My neighbor is out in his garden. Pulling
Browned remains of summer from the earth.
He leaves a pile I’ve read will shelter bees
And the papery eggs of praying mantis.
I cannot remember last year’s heat, when
Things were green just months ago. I cannot
See peace in the patient freeze of winter.
The wind cries, too, for things to thaw.
Keening. Needing. I follow the cries down the road,
Where headstones lie illegible beneath the snow.
Too many lost, sobs the wind, to ever read
Anyway, they can never return.
But then there is sun against my back, and the snow
Drips from headstones to unveil the dead.
I notice tears myself, somehow warm, and smell
Spring, rising among these graves.
Felix Deiss
DCC: Deiss Composition Collection 