Prayer in Late Winter

Roll those lowering gray winter clouds back,

like pulling up a too-long skirt,

and show us a little "leg" 

- true-blue sky patches with floating cumulus -

to set us dreaming towards the birth

of another spring.

The sodden field lies waiting, fallow, 

where next summer's hay crop promises

to once again

 wave in golden splendor

where now clods of mud

cleave to the horses' hooves

as they search in vain for any remaining

blade of green.

Grandfather Cedar

stands stately and tall,

awaiting the March rains

to refresh his roots

and quench his long thirst, 

before heat returns to the land.

The willow weeps, drooping and leaf-forsaken

and the birch trees pray 

unceasingly

with blotched brown and white arms

to a heaven

that does not 
seem to hear.

The pond is dry, the bullrushes crisp and crackling,

its edges swampy, dormant, brackish,

yet, when the fog lifts, even in the cold,

one can feel the deadened ground

begin to stir, under the chilly distant sun.

Through cracks in the surface,

under the trees,

one can see stirrings,

snowdrops butting their tiny heads

through stagnant earth,

ferns and fiddleheads

suddenly straightening their stems,

once more raising their heads,

in that eternal dance

that is return to life.

February in the late-winter forest

is when winter tiptoes away,

and everything brown and dead 

and yearning towards green 

stretches itself once more

towards the sky.

And so do

I.