January 7, 2014

the magnolias are starting to bloom **
 
Inconceivable, isn’t it, that beneath the ravage and fury
lies anything on the verge of its own birth. How the war of winter –
real and metaphorical – levels the battleground, skins it dry,
until all that’s left is the wheeze and stammer of lungs shaking a splinter
of breath from the stiff chill. But it is, improbably, enough. That moisture,
barely visible, nevertheless misting toward the hard earth, finding room
in the faintest cracks, bathing the root of the root and resting there
until time and temperature collide. Even the magnolias are starting to bloom.
Even the furthest planet wends its way into our orbit, change defying
gravity each time, a whisper of the living tucked inside the cry of the dying.