Footholds

Love waits
for a foothold,
a moment
when it is not cut down

and thrown into the fire
by fear or negligence: waits
for warming, a spring,
a season to grow anew

again and again.

God waits
for a foothold,
a moment
when he is not cut down

and thrown into the fire
by fear or negligence: waits
for warming, a spring,
a season to rise anew

again and again.

Fear too waits
for a foothold,
a moment
of weakness

To throw all good things into the fire
and burn, desiring the end
of seasons, winter evermore,
depending always on the false belief

of a Godless, loveless world

About this poem

The picture was taken this spring at Green Mountain College. I took it, knowing there was a poem in it, waiting to be let out. And after months and seasons, it finally arrived.

Tom