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Kudos for LifeRing -- Read the Testimonials Page and Add Your Own

 

Unto the Palindromic Year: 2002

This globe has ice: above the pond of dormant carp,
Quick silver frosts the poplar branches
Limned with rime. Veined leaves have sagged
Under earth's flung spate of frozen fire.

Yet the small mesanges that feed on seeds
And feather color in the frozen air
Show flickering signs that all warmth
Has not fallen, nor has flying grown a deadly art.

The light now at solstice, intense and plangent,
Turns mauve in the western-darkening afternoon.
This early night for some is blankly calm,
Some with fear feel crystal ice on stone.

Yet in our turn around the centered fire,
We see the umber bark beside the green of pine,
Beside the bud that waits upon the yearly arc
To show again the jonquils come from soil,
The sun rising on the melting pond of lilies,
Hands upon all shoulders, a wider landscape.

May the arc again arise, melt dark poplar ice,
While small fish sing their iridescent scales.
Let this pelagic pebble skip the roiling waves
As rousing waters tune their longing lives.

-- Michael O'Grady, 1/1/02

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