Listen to the darkness on these long nights of winter.
Taste the golden moonbeam, and the wind’s kiss so bitter.
The frogs and bats and lizards, have all gone to sleep.
Fat bears are sleeping too in their caves so dark and deep.
The dried grasses rustle as a field mouse scurries past
Protected by the matted leaves from cold winter’s blast.
The mournful hooting owl and the whisper of its wings
Strikes silence to the grasses and furry scuttling things
.
But though the earth is crisp with frost in the chill of winter’s night
Bulbs are swelling in the ground. Shoots of green reach up for light.
Waiting for the sunshine. Waiting for the warm rain.
Waiting for the turning earth, and spring that comes again.