By mid-February, they are budding,
long stems of promise,
as if the hope that spring would triumph
over winter were soon to be realized.
Seeing those groups of early flowers
can make one overcome affliction,
can dampen the gloom the cold
of winter might bring, as if they were
little microphones with which I could
sing softly, as soft as spring. I’d prefer
a blanket of snowdrops to snow
though, for the mildness of spring
is like the tender shoots they show.
How aptly they reveal! How soon
I want what they gift. Beyond
the riffs of snow and argument.
—
Donna J. Gelagotis Lee is the author of Intersection on Neptune (The Poetry Press of Press Americana, 2019), winner of the Prize Americana for Poetry 2018, and On the Altar of Greece (Gival Press, 2006), winner of the Seventh Annual Gival Press Poetry Award. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals internationally, including About Place Journal, Cimarron Review, The Massachusetts Review, Southern Humanities Review, and Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments. www.donnajgelagotislee.com
