Through night’s constellations we listen and wait
for winter’s low music, a change in the air.
The dark sky swaddles its secrets.
The white pine our watchman with heavy-winged branches
beats time with the wind. Far off a lone creature
quietly howls. All ear and echo, waiting, waiting.
We’ve tried to be bears who dream deep
through the winter. We’ve tried to be fish
under ice taking slow, quiet breaths.
It is serious work to wait through darkness for daybreak.
Now we hive like bees overwintering: honey enough
for all and heat forged by our murmuring wings,
humming and holding and warming and waiting:
winter and snowfall, a way back to the light.
