Midwinter the daylilies crown.
Moss phlox opens lavender spokes.
Months early, daffodils spike.
Peonies risk their ruby wrists
as the confounded seasons
fool everything not wary
of the still-measured light.
A young man behind the counter
in town says it feels like the end
of the world, and I nod, me
with the unwelcome bloom in my breast.
It is winter, so dormant, so die
I say to the chaos of green
on my hill, to my body’s unruly
cells. We will stand it, both of us,
the mountain and me.
We will relearn every small death.
