On Softening

Days of freezing cold, nights
listening to sleet scratch vertical
dashes on the roof and windowpanes. 
And yet, besides the tiny icicles
that hang from the limbs of the fig
tree, you've seen packed green nubs
that will purple into fruit in summer.
For now, every edge gleams sharp
as the grief of the mother scouring
the earth for the daughter taken into 
the underworld. But even now, the light 
is already changing. The hard, 
packed earth softens after thaw.