My yearning sees the earth below
the melting ice and speaks to me
of when the warmer winds will blow
and hope, now hidden beneath the snow,
appears in mud and rises, free.

She loves the red-wings’ sputter call
and welcomes skeins of geese in flight.
She finds delight when the maples’ small
and hanging, clustered blossoms fall,
and peepers sing of love at night.

She cautions me against disdain
for slogging through the rain and mud,
reminding me the muck sustains
–from birth to death to birth again–
and nurtures more of life than blood.

She cannot see how long I’ve known
the truths she whispers in my ear,
or how the sacred seeds she’s sown
have rooted, sprouted, flowered, grown
–or how I hold my yearning dear.