. . .near-spring

how?  in the glitter-snow and

     iron-ice no warmly

but world-tilt    sun-milk

     below arrowhead stars,

a small simmer

.

how? earthworm snout

     starts her plow, tilling the yarn

of earth with her gut.

    sky drip behind the untils,

until a code robin sings and

.

now o patient seed labor open

    . . .thy husk

now in the hunger of animals

     eggs unroll into flower buds

fallingly into almost near-

     . . .spring

j. pratt-walter, © 2024

Listen

 I can hear it in the silence

of my ancestors.  Between

their stories breathes a

terse quiet

 

too large for mere

words.  They call it

 

the Voice still

and small.  It rings

under my ribs,

 

an unstopped bell

in the center of my

wholeness.

 

It took 60 years to sense

its strange music

 

but I am going along,

and as I go, I listen.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2021

Winter’s Eye

        I look Winter 

right into his frosty eye

but I don’t see emptiness;

there is not one bleak hour.

No, he is filled toe to crown

with all the potential of a year

and a teeming willingness

to let it go, to give it all up to the

tumpeting needs of everythingness

just waiting to happen.

J. Pratt-Walter

(c) 1/5/2019