The winter garden,
pared and cleared,
bides in time,
no mind or heart
for hour or day,
nor length of night,
just life in still,
bare-limbed,
cold-clod,
plant and soil;
when of a sudden
air to earth
wings a cardinal,
as if a hinge
of time, of summer,
memory and hope,
seeded in us,
sursum corda,
while we face
the coming snow.
