Underground

by Pia Taavila

Let me wait as the crocus waits,
folded, petal upon petal,
the wrapped core still alive,
still pulsing, yet content to count,
the snow’s mantle oddly soothing
above the bulb’s curled destiny.

Then, when the sun trains its gaze
upon the earth’s horizon,
when nestlings rustle,
will I send up a shoot,
a spire of fiery purple
to glisten in spring rain.

Pia Taavila, Professor of English at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, is the author of the newly-published Moon on the Meadow. Her poems have appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Comstock Review, Appalachian Heritage, The Southern Review and qarrtsiluni, among others. She lives in Fredericksburg, VA with her family and just completed a residency at The Vermont Studio Center (March, 2008).