WINTER PRAYER

Bedraggled green stems
Whose ochre bells
And lemon skirts droop
on the snow.
A sign of early Spring
Defeated by late winter.
A crow pecks the iron ground
Whose silver gleams
Are without promise.
A still air hangs mist
Among branches.
Trees tall silhouettes
of ebony as their stretching
Reaches into the cold day.

Prayers for Palm Sunday
Echo from a nearby church.
Children, running, shouting,
laughing under a bluebell sky.
Joyful, though Summer is a long
time coming and the days
are short.
Not for them, childhood
is lengthy.
Let not our winter destroy
their Spring so that
the warmth of Summer
Will bloom again.