When the rain stopped today,
all was still, grey and cold.
Straw bales were calling, wanting
my hands
to break them apart, spread them about,
winter the vegetables, hug the late chard, the turnips,
the kale.
 
Let the first frosts of winter take what they might
Let them spare what still grows
 
Maybe in springtime
after deep snow has come, melted and gone,
there will be something still living,
something to hold —

Brave green shoots
for my waiting hands.

This poem first appeared in Musings: An Anthology of Work by the Collingwood Writers’ Collective (Collingwood Public Library, 2016).
Used here with the author’s permission.