Spring Runoff (2011)

It was Wednesday, and the season of fasting
and the ice was black in the corners of the world
It looked like winter, and felt like winter, and smelt like winter
and winter eternal

but that night there was a movement in the air
a breaking in the silence
and a wind came up
warm and deep and wide low

and in the margins of our sleep
we heard it roaring in the pines,
and felt it shake the roof
and the old house of our flesh was set to groaning.

And we awoke, and forsook roofs and walls
for love of the wind
we left our blankets and our sleep
we left our very clothes

and went out like children
naked in the wind
though it was winter
For all we knew.

And the wind rose roaring to meet us
it poured in our eyes and ears and down our throats
it swept up through the soles of our feet
and bled in through the palms of our opened hands

And down, down into the deep of us
into the glacial dark of us
to shake the ice as old as man
to warm the winter in the heart of the world.

And when we could speak again
it was as the sound of rushing water
and we ran down all the ditches of the land
in a brown and joyful flood.