The Promise of Spring
When my hair was tied in two tails
I frolicked about the warped trunk of a willow
As the cicadas serenaded in the summer’s heat
The tree held me in its low arms
I watched nature pulse
I tasted nothing but joy in those days
Capable of comprehending nothing but euphoria
Jade orbs gazed through rounded windows perched atop my nose
At nature bleeding hues of yellow and red
The willow was a stunning cadmium to match the craft that took me away from it every morning
The craft would transport me to an alien world
Here I was an ashen duckling among daffodil chicks
Who marched in line with them but would never fit their puzzle
Dancing seas of anticipation
Gazed through a porthole thirty-thousand feet above the land
Far from my willow back home
Colorful ants scurried through paved corridors
Their destination I will never know
A fraction of a day spent before arriving in paradise
Our slate craft ferried us across the crimson bridge
To a frigid shore
To a community of boats and potted plants
To stone monuments that dwarf the largest breathing creatures
To conifers the size of skyscrapers
A hug’s expanse could not surround the trunks of these giants
Now vacant spheres stare through the window
Lungs fill and deflate, heart pulses
Numbed mind
Yet still living
A girlish figure has melted to porcelain curves
Porcelain white to harmonize with the feathery puffs descending outside the window
Pallid digits trace invisible figures on the cold glass
The willow’s painted leaves have long been gone
Buried far beneath winter’s glass and delicate veil
The winter is long and lonesome
The epitome of sunless silence
Obsidian clouds meet ivory snow; the world plunges into a monochromatic stillness
But the numbness of winter refuses to last for an eternity
Its grip will soon be broken by
The promise of spring
Copyright © Shannon Elizabeth | Year Posted 2017
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