The woods still are brown and grey
But the icicles are gone
And now flowing water stains dark streaks
Down the dull sandstone cliff
Here and there tiny yellow wildflowers
Outrageously golden
Look out of place
I should learn their names
What the ancients called them
And what ills those early ones knew they could cure
These very flowers
I don’t recall seeing them ever before
May live only one day
And may hold in their sap
Some tonic that will dissolve
All the poisons the winter forced us to swallow.
One step ahead
I look closely at the single leaf unfurling at the edge of the trail
It is striped like fine suit-cloth
And looks out of place
I should learn its name
And what the ancients knew of it
This single leaf might be the very poultice
To draw from the blood
Every stain of the long winter
And put back into a man
A lust for life.
Copyright 2015
