The slant of blue-grey shadows on the snow—
the forest opens its quiet pages
onto the listening field.

In the strange script of tight-fisted
buds and slumbering sap,
the prophecy hums:
a leaf unfurled,
a promised fruit—now
only imagined on the over-bright snow
as sun gets stretched across each
cold day like a too-tight coat.

Winter trees wait, and we wait too,
until the tension is released
between cold hearts
and the fiery Light.

But the future is gripped in those myriad fists,
until ripened and ready
for revelation.