February / Sally Bruce Kinsolving

February

Upon the black wet earth
I walk
While I listen
To the talk
Of birds that breast
The icy wind
Their timid friends
Have left behind —

And though
There is no burgeoning,
Nor any bird
That dares to sing,
Gold willow-wands
Bespeak the spring
And point
Their magic sceptres to
A patch of sky
As clear and blue
As any late
For-get-me-not
Half-hidden
In a mossy spot. . . .

And while the snow
Trips over hills
As lightly as a child
That fills
Her lap in June
With daisies,
Sudden vivid green
Amazes
Eyes forlorn
And city-spent
From seeing beauty scorned,
Or rent
By the many ugly scars
Wherewith man
His progress mars:

Thus in the hovering
Moment when
Mad swelling streams
Divide the glen,
And winter cleaves the year
With spring,
I lift my surging heart
And sing.

~~

Sally Bruce Kinsolving (1876-1962)

From David and Bath-sheba, and other poems, 1922

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Sally Bruce Kinsolving biography