Days after the Winter Solstice
BY RICHARD STOKES
Even if you listen carefully
you will not hear the shift of breathing
in buds tightly clenched against winter.
Deep in alder and cottonwood thickets
a buzz has started as more photons of light
cascade over the fist-tight buds
than yesterday and the day before,
beginning tingles of expectation and of hope,
a quickening to build day by day
until the green and aromatic explosion of Spring.
• Richard Stokes, a Juneau resident since 1971, writes about nature, which he loves, and aging, which he is doing.
