Dull February seeps away in cold
homebound days, each one much like the other,
dreary sameness of earth and sky besieged
by dread and dim and snow that turns to rain.
One sickness after another, dripping
noses and coughs, prednisone and albuterol
snipping hearts and snapping tempers until
finally the waxing moon raises her full
face through the black trees’ lace into a yard heaped
with a comforter of bluest snow sparkling.
We trundle to the library and return
with sackfuls of stories to stoke sinking
spirts’ dull coals with new sparks of bright hope.
We stay up reading far into the night.
