Blue in Summer, White when the Snow Falls

This time of year, the world is so green,

so alive, you can almost forget

how much death there is.

It lives in the rot under the crust, bits

of plastic in the vegetables, silver,

quick-eyed fish with intestines

that read Thank You!

and Come Again!

But the sun is back,

and somewhere, the thrush

makes her nest deep and quiet

in the woods, and she is singing.

Winter was all wrong this year,

and it’s breaking my heart.

Strange, too-late snow snuffed out

the wiry newborn daffodils, and all we could

do was watch. We wrote the poems,

we took the photographs. We wrote how

April, once promising, has become

a vat of sludge like the ocean,

with pure white veins like the stars.

I, too, have returned to my desk

to write of the birds, the snow.

I, too, have inherited the worry

of writers, the worry of the worth

of my work. But I know it isn’t nothing.

It’s almost enough.