Winter like a gnawing beaver,
our marching, pulpy legs almost giving out.
The stark, cold landscape
straps like a whip.
Dreaming of spring
dreaming of color,
longing for cherry blossoms
fruit plump and flavored,
crimson dense, only because
they steeped in ice so long,
branches full because roots
are steadfast under the surface.
Red skies appear like oracles
binding daylight to darkness,
fission in fuchsia that make
halos in the eyes. It’s not
certain, only potential.
Meanwhile,
using what nature provides:
lakes for the shanties,
freedom of fish, for lanterned
messages set alight to the skies,
sculptured ice, chiseled in grit
in shapes
of what matters, bodies
growing stronger
under the weight
of what they never knew
they could hold.
