Poem: Hexennacht (April 30, 2020)

At the end of my walk

old wood leans on old wood

and the grass has already grown

knee-high.

In the verge I found a fawn lily,

petals hazed in a white glow, 

downward facing, shy,

hiding as we all hide now.

I sit in the damp grass,

let the earth seep up to my skin.

The birds are singing; their lives

go on when ours do not.

Eve of the first day of summer.

How strange, then,

that we are the very body 

of the season of dying.

All my works have been done;

I have burned my will to ash

and tasted it on my tongue.

This last long winter is the hardest.

I will be filled again,

or not,

but the grass will go on growing

and the rain will make us lush

and the summer will come,

with us,

without us,

either way.

-Libbie Grant