I am no gardener, but I do know this:
Perennials and orchards need the kiss
Of an early frost, a freezing deep,
To hold them whole through winter’s keep
A bloom in false spring, (winter’s hollow),
Before the heavy snows that follow,
Will have the cell walls bursting, cracking,
Freezing, thawing, expanding, contracting.
So too, must dreams lay dormant still,
Or else becoming Winterkill.
Much as I wish them to bloom, bloom now,
They must lay under the mulch and bough.
I tell myself, “Learn what you can from the season”
Patience, Myopia, Acceptance sans reason -
You are stuck in the wheel, right here and right now,
Hearing naught in the dark, muffled underground.
Yet I am no seedling! I am no tree!
Though my flesh warms and cools just as easily.
So why should I wait? Why be pinned by the cold?
Do I have a choice in the story that’s told?
Could I be a cold crocodile, nose above ice,
Or hibernate warm with the marmots and mice?
Why not come in from the outside to thaw,
And savor small tidbits of hope in my maw?
Could I choose to fly south, or to stay evergreen?
Must I really wait for the melt to be seen?
I wonder, though I’m sure from what seed I have come,
Is it winter that dictates what I will become?