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“Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.” ~ T.S. Eliot

One by one, the lost or forgotten return:
bulbs erupt from their winter envelopes;
seeds sprout in the yard, following
the scything arc of the careless

hand that must have scattered them.
And the ache in my heart I thought
I’d buried deep in the teeming soil
of everyday ferment skims

lightly again to the surface, asking
to be taken in my palms, asking to be
examined. And I don’t know now
just as I didn’t know before,

what to believe if suddenly it lifts
two dusty brown wings hinged to its soft
moth body, though its breathing is the only
prayer I can remember in the room.

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