Snapshot 02 March 02005

For Joe

This is February's last day,
yet I sit in my garden, writing.
One patch of snow by the door.
One strand of ice on the ivy.

This is Joe's last week.
He sits in his high bed, waiting.
One hard chair by the window.
One small woman in the chair.

I am wearing my coat, but it's
open. The dogs sniff at the sun.
Wintergreen leaves are curled
on the trellis. One pale cloud

in the sky. Plants still stand
in the flowerbed, that should
have bent down under ice
and snow. Green is scenting

the changing air. Joe is trying
to speak. Who am I, to live
this day? Goldfish rise to
the warming skin of the water.

Comments

[Cathy]

I'm glad you can write about spring coming. With a foot of snow and maybe more coming. Ugh!! I'm hard press to find anything remotely of spring. Excellent poem.

[jenni russell]

Wonderful poem.

[Rachel]

I love "I am wearing my coat, but it's/ open." That's the hope for spring, right there, in a nutshell.

[loren]

This poem definitely needs a crocus or two, though I'm a little surprised most readers see it as a Spring poem rather than a Winter poem.