a leaden winter

 

late February in the Piedmont

this winter has had a leaden dreariness about it:

not much bracing cold with clear skies and quick warm-ups,

instead grey days of cloud and rain

dare crocus and daffodil to come out into exuberance,

and hold back the spring peepers’ piping

till February starts to decline,

garden and forest paths sodden 

from the recurring, and recurring, showers,

spring holds back and doesn’t lurch forward,

now the ground can be worked

but the mud doesn’t want it to be,

in the last week of February

temperatures touch 70 degrees for a few days

so I plant seeds and hope for 

lettuce and sugar snap peas to come forth,

inside I start tomatoes and tomatillos

in hopes of their being in the ground by early April,

the forest feels expectant,

as if at the starting line,

poised to take off when the signal comes,

I feel as if the outside world has a screen around it

within which a slow-motion movie should soon start

and unveil the kingdom of the plants’ celebration

of what stem and leaf can recreate again with a new spring,

it is hard, though, to see past the long daze of grey, 

and see hope.

by Henry H. Walker

February 25, ‘21