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

Name one thing you survived that no one saw.

---

Name one thing you survived
that no one saw—

my dad being in jail
and me acting like I’m okay.

crying more than anyone knows,
and still crying sometimes
because he said
I might be back with him
by the end of summer.

missing him
while he’s still alive,
just somewhere
I can’t reach.

no one saw that.

but I did.