Winter Song

Insidious winds will blow,
and rain or sleet come down
to blur the fields and try
the patient shoots
that bide their time
beneath the loam—

And waiting seems so long,
and spring too far away
a memory of easeful time:
even the tree whose roots I’ve
coiled indoors into a dish
knows it is time to shed

what remnants it wears
of green— Austere
the habit of the season,
a growing lean. Cast off
the surfeit, give away.
Lean on the longer days.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.