FOR WORDSWORTH: DAFFODILS

FOR WORDSWORTH: DAFFODILS

Through a long winter
my feet have traced a new path
through unpatterned shadows
from ice-laden limbs of bare trees.
Bare trees cannot shelter,
even sparrows,
yet they do offer themselves
as cold crystal prisms,
as pale sun warms the waiting
for some sound of spring. There!
Yellow chalice-faces,
green-stemmed hope,
daffodils breaking through—offering—
There!
--Barbara Smith Stoff

FACING WEST

FACING WEST

Wild persimmons, red cardinals...
Heart aches for the beauty of the place
To stay and stir among the wintering roots
Tufting through to spring. To Spring? Oh.
The heart caves and whispers
Not, in such deep silence.
Eye watches autumn
Surely sifting summer seeding
For winter's cold keeping
And spring ever calling.
Already I long for spring...
Or fear white winter's dying...
What dies in winter?
Only the summer's dreaming.

--Barbara Smith Stoff