Poem: "Thaw" by Pamela Harrison
Thaw
On a March Monday so mild the season’s song birds sing, she puts on her galoshes and passes down on old crusted snow to the hollow. Leaving the path, the sun-bathed bowl of meadow and the noisy road where trucks and cars rush past, she steps into the stand of pines like the deer that sleeps beneath its boughs. Standing still in the quiet cover, awakening to the grove’s hidden life, she soon hears the invisible stream. Threading toward it through the thawing, slipping, catching a bare branch, she follows the sound down to a pool where silver trickles over ice. There, she lies down on a bed of fallen needles and gazes up though the intricate etchings of bare limbs toward the green- needled height. She thinks maybe she’ll make a little room there above the rusted floor, clearing some space, simplified and chaste. For now, it’s enough to rest a while near the whispering, hearing again the world’s pulse freed from loss. |
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Pamela Harrison reads "Thaw" |