Sarah Petersen

I am Here

I am standing here.

Clouds march low-

A parade of benevolent spirits

Heading heart-ward.

The White Ribbon of Light repeatedly traces

The frozen mountain of waves

Quickening the crackling of icy puddles

At my feet as I stand here

On this melting planet of blue and green and brown and white

Looking up through the crocheted comforter sky

Dazzling blue ombre radiating through holes in the fabric

Dirty and dreary and desolate the sandy snow below

Miraculous and continuing, the Great Soothing Hand

Of All, passing over this earth, over me-

It’s okay, it’s okay

You are here.

You are here.

Spring Reform

There is a collective cracking open

At the edge of this dormancy.

Creativity tentatively, bravely brandishing

Something fragile and new.

Starting with the mud and dust and broken

Sticks at our feet we boldly build hope

Bursting forth buds of poems, collages, cable knit revolutions

As if months, years of listening, watching,

Waiting is over and life forces itself out.

The spring of humanity fully cognizant

Of the deadly decay of perpetual winter

Where waiting,

alone, isolated, cocooned

We were being transformed into something unrecognizable

Hints of our DNA rearranged to form

This, our becoming.

The richness of our soil and sorrow

The urgency of spring, the forcefulness

Of living. The purpose of now.

This, my breath,

Is what it means to be alive,

Together.

Rebirth

As if I didn’t know by now,

look here,

rebirth is the only option.

This entire tree that has fallen into the stream,

trunk submerged, dead logs gathering,

reaches its above-water branches skyward

in a gesture of help or more likely praise

to the sun above calling to tiny leaves, “grow”

And they obey, and up and up

new leaves form a water canopy

roots dig down into the muddy silt

content to make a claim-this is home now

and hope-

this bright green promise

is the color of it.

Fish find food and shelter

among your watery branches

the way birds once did in the sky

Holy work, the call to live

Holy work, to rise again.