Pausing For Poetry

I heard this poem yesterday morning on The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor on NPR while I was standing in my bathroom applying blush to my cheeks in an effort to brighten up my face from it's winter pallor. The words read in Garrison's lilting voice made me feel so hopeful for the newness of spring that I want to share it with my dear, discerning readers.

Revival

by Luci Shaw

I am beginning to

to anticipate a thaw. Early mornings

the earth, old unbeliever, is still crusted with frost

where the moles have nosed up their

cold castings, and the ground cover

in shadow under the cedars hasn't softened

for months, fogs layering their slow, complicated ice

around foliage and stem

night by night,

but as the light lengthens, preacher

of good news, evangelizing leaves and branches,

his large gestures beckon green

out of gray. Pinpricks of coral bursting

from the cotoneasters. A single bee

finding the white heather. Eager lemon-yellow

aconites glowing, low to the ground like

little uplifted faces. A crocus shooting up

a purple hand here, there, as I stand

on my doorstep, my own face drinking in heat

and light like a bud welcoming resurrection,

and my hand up, too, ready to sign on

for conversion.