Late Winter

By Rowena Conahan

​Are you ready to shed
the grey skin of late winter,
to shimmy out of it
and slide away
from all that it was?
 
The glories of last year’s flowers
lie spent and withered
upon the muddy earth.
 
The blades of grass,
once emerald,
are now folded across the meadow,
rows and bunches
of fading scales,
buckling in decay.
 
Even the waters,
Earth’s glimmering eyes,
bear a dull glaze
of rotting ice,
as if she were
truly done for.
 
But anyone
who’s ever watched
a garter snake
wiggle out of his old hide,
struggling forth
in gleaming newness
to slither away on a sigh
 
is watching
for the cracks
in the brown shell
of the soil.
 
There! And
there!
 
The jewel of a crocus,
a spear of green in the garden,
the deep, dusky,
prickled purple
of rising nettles,
roiling the shadows.
 
What husk do you wear
that once was a warm blanket?
 
What visions glitter in your heart,
waiting only for you to shrug
and surrender
 
to your inevitable
rebirth?