climate change, and hope
early this winter climate change
dealt with excess energy in the system
by keeping the East warm,
spring peepers tricked into waking up in early January,
then that energy unleashes a powerful sleet storm
that sends them back under in late January,
and now on Groundhog Day they’re out again,
their hopeful trill calling spring to come forth,
instead cold Canadian air slumbers them again,
the buds and limbs cautious, not yet opening,
daffodils and crocus peek up above the earth,
and suddenly the crocus erupt into color
to change the mood that gray works on land and psyche,
then they pause in a new cold,
I order tomato seeds
and ready their planting inside,
heat and humidity coax them into reaching from the potting soil,
seed catalogues titillate me with promise,
and I imagine what the growing season might release,
days lengthen and still the cold asserts itself,
mid-February, ice comes down upon the world
and frustrates some of our plans,
I take a picture of bud after bud,
encased in frozen rain,
flower and fruit a dream,
a dream into which we can awake in but weeks,
if the weather will just let us.
by Henry H. Walker
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