Keep Walking

Summer zinnias and cosmos in full bloom.

***

Can Flowers Change Your Life? III.  January 3, 2016

The hard frost came two days after
our year changed. No slight touch
this time.  The lawn looks iced.  A thin
ice coat lies even on the porch railing.  
The meadow weeds are snowy white.
December was warm.  Violets popped up.
Daffodils thrust up stems.  The blueberry
bushes put on buds.  The hydrangea lost
all its leaves and then started to put them
back.  The zinnias were only dead stalks,
but one of the sunflowers opened in 
defiance of all logic.  I failed to weed
the flower garden so the crocuses could
get through.  Maybe it’s not too late.
Rain and work kept me indoors.  Sun
brought in those Arctic blasts again.
We’re promised snow this month and
next.  I’ve been given wood and a
shelter to keep it dry, as well as a new
Hoganvillaea sign, and daffodils to rise
when warmth and rain return.  My life
has also turned a corner.  A watershed, 
separating two valleys, is where I stand--
in the other one now.  The end of my
life is some years off, but I see what I 
must do in the meantime–twenty years,
more or less.  If I suffer doubts that I am
loved and even honored, I can let them
go now.  There are no crowds, no loud
ovations, yet my work and my love are
celebrated and acknowledged.  No point
wishing for what isn’t there, when so much
that I longed for has come true.  People see
and want to thank me.  My leyline path
is well-marked now.  I needn’t hesitate,
simply keep walking, whether through
warm rain or frost and sun.

Jim Shamp brought me a wood bin the day I wrote this poem.
It has kept the wood dry, and many donors have helped fill it.
Thank you, Jim and Dawn and my whole winter story class!