Something is Stirring

Underneath parched brown leaves,
curled, crumbled remnants of winter,
a new stirring.

Something in earth’s ancient time clock
signals to tiny organisms.
It is wake-up time.

Something deep, irrepressible,
mysterious is on the move.
Sap begins to flow.

The winter sun is still low in the sky
but it has a little residual warmth.
It warms the earth.

Like human nerve endings messaging the brain,
the warm earth sends its invisible,
long-awaited signals

to bulbs, tubers and roots buried
under their mulch of winter leaf mould.
Tiny shoots appear

on desiccated roots; small tendrils, coiled
foetus-like beneath the soil, start to unfurl,
reaching for the light.

From brown to darkened shades of red,
from red to green, finally the world sheds
its winter weeds,

reaches for its habitual cloak of green.
From the stillness of its deep slumber,
something living,

something new is stirring. From death to life,
from darkness into light, a new creation is emerging
from the depths

as surely as year succeeds to year. Winter, summer,
seedtime and harvest; will we succeed
in destroying that too?

Julia Duke