Another snowfall

Adds to the weight

Of this winter.

Skiing through the marsh,

Slender spruce trees

Bow beneath their burden.

Stooped old women,

Curled into themselves.

 

Flake by pure-driven flake,

It is not one but the many

Small injustices that

Bend these trees over time.

Break some of them.

 

How can something light

As a perfect crystal,

Accumulate into

Oppression? Like

Letters, formed into

Words, formed into

Ideas, onerous enough to

Bend low the life beneath them.

 

A pine grosbeak lands lightly on a

Heavy-laden branch.

Small feet

Disrupt the fragile weave

Releasing an avalanche.

The only sound a

Whispered breath of snow.

 

Hope comes unexpectedly.

A flutter of wing.

The stir of wind.

A tiny beating heart.

***