Snowdrops

Do you know what I was, how I lived? you know
what despair is? then
winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive.
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light of earliest spring--

afraid yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.


-- Louise Gluck