I bury their heads in peat and think of the day when
the sun warms the soil and the clouds bring the rain and the white
snowy fields that once seemed to stretch endless will
be a fuzzy memory of a cold and irrelevant past.
the seeds so carefully planted before the first frost will
unfold like origami and send thin furry roots tunneling
through the chilly dirt to find footholds in the earth.
I’ll wake to find a thin coat of green covering
the warmed soil surrounding the base of the old birch tree
in the back yard.
eventually, the thin frost of green will grow into a thick carpet, obscuring
the domed hills marking the entrance and exit of traveling worms,
the triangular footprints of excavating seasonal birds, even the
occasional fox footpad, preserved in wet mud. but
today, snow falls in soft clumps outside my kitchen window, barely
heard or felt by the tiny cocooned bodies of insects and plants
lying dormant beneath the soil. I stare past the snow
dream bright, grand dreams of far-off
summer days, imagining the crackle
of night crawlers moving beneath decomposing leaves, the way
the stars look so fuzzy in the sky on
hazy, summer nights.
Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Tampa Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, and Ugly Girl.
Foxglove Journal 