Springtime Elegy
by Zeke Shomler
The thing I really love’s the mound of snow
still slumping into mid-May’s bloom-strewn toil--
how at a distance, you might think below
the surface it’s all rock and rot-damp soil,
the last of winter’s traction-gravel left
to hold the roots of upsprung little weeds:
the toadflax, dandelion, quick bird vetch
that overtakes and strangles, spreads its seeds
as if on any other pile of dirt
up here where summer burns to never-night,
where willow bends to moose beneath the skirt
of sky, but you’d be wrong; your human sight
just can’t detect the solid ice beneath.
And so it is. And so it is with grief.
still slumping into mid-May’s bloom-strewn toil--
how at a distance, you might think below
the surface it’s all rock and rot-damp soil,
the last of winter’s traction-gravel left
to hold the roots of upsprung little weeds:
the toadflax, dandelion, quick bird vetch
that overtakes and strangles, spreads its seeds
as if on any other pile of dirt
up here where summer burns to never-night,
where willow bends to moose beneath the skirt
of sky, but you’d be wrong; your human sight
just can’t detect the solid ice beneath.
And so it is. And so it is with grief.
Zeke Shomler is a poet and educator in Fairbanks, Alaska. A Pushcart nominee, his writing has appeared in AGNI, Folio, South Florida Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. More of his work can be found at zekeshomler.com.