Declaration

In the whirl and whip
Of these worry-filled
Winds of Winter
They hurry through bare-branched forest and
Blow their bone rattling cold
Through marrow and soul
Whispering wintry words without mercy or promise
Except the promise to steal steam from coffee
And fling it into infinite cold
Endless cold
Forevercold.

Night after night
The dark wind howls
Outside windows
And threatens to enter
And creeps through cracks
And open doors
And haunts basement floors
Taking all it can take
With a lust for more

And yet

The Light makes way
Without detection (at first)
And day by day
Captures some cold
One minute at a time

Sequestered cold
Still overconfident
Still ignorant
Still threatening
Still cold
Stilled

Light only (at first)
To show the robin where to fly
Before thought of flight ignited
To call the flower to bloom
Buried deep in a seed
Before it thought to awake

Then Sun whispers warm
Breaths into the wind
The bird hears first
Then sings songs earlier this morning
Than the morning before
With patient wooing
Of sleeping seeds

Reluctant cold
Relents and retreats
At the soothing songs of the Sun

Rousing flower from seed
To reach for light
From buried darkness
To break the Earth
To rise and declare –
“Spring!”