What comes back. What we let back in. The long slow work of re-entering our own lives.

Return

A spring orbit. Something is loosening. This week we turn toward what is coming back, and what we are finally ready to let come back.

Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,

hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees 

Early Spring

Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.

The Thaw

Write about a return. Not a triumphant one. A small one.

i'm compiling my poems—
all of them.
some from twenty years ago, some from last week;
all coming into the present.
there are words i forgot a decade ago
words written without regard for their longevity.
there are hopes and fears and prayers and lies.
lies that i told myself at 15 that hit me with a tinge of sadness today.
who was that girl?
who is she today?
this endeavor—it's sparking such a fire inside to write again.