When the Dust Settled
The crocus sprang forth from your hand
Like the sparrow’s first warble of spring
Or a magician’s uncloaked bouquet—
Abra cadabra: first nothing, then something.
After winter’s long enchainment
You offered the bloom ex nihilo
From the soil You’d been tending—
The very place I deemed my annihilation.
The thorn in my flesh broke the ground
For the flower, safe and unshaken
By the passing shadows of night.
In the sun’s startling light, I grow; I rise.