A Pattern of Warming

It happens
so slowly
beginning
with a cold
that is not quite
freezing.
A day or two
before the bitter
returns.
Then a day
or two more
hovering,
not quite warm,
but not cruel,
the snow melting
underneath
where you cannot see it.
Melting
in the day,
freezing
hard as ice
in the night.
One day
then another,
slowly
as time passes,
a pattern of warming
sucking the snow
from the bottom,
each day melting
underneath,
seeping
into the ground,
filling the streams.
You begin to see it,
Small patches,
Dark earth
that has been starved
of light
for a season.
So much snow.
A hard season,
perhaps the hardest,
a season of deprivation
and loss,
a season without color,
that drew the life
out of you
each time you stepped
outside,
the whole landscape
of your life
covered with cold.
You are so accustomed
to stifling white
that you do not see it
emerge
until one day suddenly
Spring is there.

About this poem

This poem has nothing to do with winter. But you can pretend it does.

The picture was taken not far down the road from me in West Pawlet, Vermont.

Tom