This is my first poem of the New Year, written this afternoon.
First Rite
Reluctantly compliant twigs
permit the murmuring wind
to pluck arpeggios -
they glisten as they dance,
throw off the recent rain,
as if to solemnize the ground
in Holy baptism.
Shoots drill
through the cold
sodden ground,
shrilling defiance.
Snow’s residue,
a blanket stitch,
hems in the pale green spears.
A sunbeam breaks
the day’s grey wash -
as if to bless
this new emergence.
24 January 2007
