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 entered the university library for the first time in two years since becoming chronically ill and taking a leave of absence and they've changed the cafe and closed the franchise that was there and now they scan the books differently and my pass didn't work on the accessible barrier so i squeezed through the turnstile with my cane and climbed three flights of stairs to get two books i needed because i am afraid of lifts and now i have two books that i will return in a month when i graduate