February

(photos within photo courtesy Katie Wright.)
For some reason, I'm thinking about spring. Maybe it's because my neighbors are inexplicably mowing their lawn. (Yes, they shoveled the snow off first.)

"Snowdrops"
-Louise Gluck
Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is: then
winter should have meaning for you.
I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, the feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring-
afraid, yes, but among you even
crying yes risk joy
in the raw wind of the new world.