Winter Annuals

Sometimes, I think, these

were the stars I prayed to seven years ago

While she slept beside me, almost calm. Or else

it was the ceiling,

Bits of mica fitfully glittering like fool's gold

in a riverbed I drifted down, dreamward

Finally, beyond fatigue, both of us

easing over a wooded hillside, the earth

Moss-softened and vivid with the blossoms

we stopped for-chicory,

Cow-vetch, lupin and larkspur, and, rare on a bank,

a shooting star,

Its petals violetly plumed. And when at last

the oaks opened out,

We waded back over a field of white asters, like

star-sparkle

On a winter's night, and spotted, alongside the drive,

a patch of snowdrops lolling,

Mutely and briefly,

and then, nearer home, a leopard lily drooping

As though it longed for the tropics. Hardly

the tropics now-

Two feet of crusted snow, or more, and the air so bitter

it can barely be breathed.

Still, my foolishness astounds me-

that I could be caught flatfooted again in the snow,

In January, no longer chilled

but numb,

The heavenly bodies once again returned, the same ones,

Appearing even closer and clearer

in the cold, as though leaning and gesturing,

The whispers almost audible-if I stay long enough,

if I listen, if I try-

Once again, the lesson almost always about

to be learned.