The ice, snow, and cold makes winter seem bleak. Just as can the dark times of our lives. Those times when it seems like we’re stuck in some stark, frigidity that won’t break lose, or when we feel as though we can’t see clearly our path to growth. Even when we know intellectually that things will get better despair happens. Nature shows us otherwise though. Ivy on the forest floor, spotted on a winter’s walk in snowy woods encouraged that wisdom for me…and inspired this poem.
Winter Knows
There in the brown boggy rot
Sodden with wet, sprinkled with white
Peeking through, small and green
Poking, reaching into the crisp
Springy vine, frog-shaped ivy leaf
Gently and boldly affirming, re–minding
Step softly, it whispers
Here
Still
In winter’s stark void
Small and quiet, feeds
And breathes, and longs to grow
A hushed promise
Persists