Premonition / Louise Driscoll

Premonition

There’s the crystal shiver of an icicle
  Falling from a bank where the runnels are deep
That the last snow cut in the red-brown bank
  Where the melting frost-rills creep.

The pine tree branches are bending low
  With a wet, white weight; and a woodpecker drums
On a locust tree that will blossom white
  When the call for honey comes.

The elm tree is gray with a purple shade,
  And the sky seems to hang too low;
But I’ve seen a light that the willows made,
  Yellow against the snow.

The edge of the wind is dull and wet;
  The thin ice over the stream looks black;
And I know that power to power is set,
  And winter is turning back.

~~
Louise Driscoll (1875-1957)
from The Garden of the West, 1922

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

Louise Driscoll biography