The morning sky sags, heavy and gray,

drooped around dead trees and grass

like frayed cloth.

Broken branches hang,

caught in twisted strands

from the ice storm three years ago.

Clumps of sloughed growth

spread across the field and backyard

of an abandoned house,

its windows dark,

black in the bleakness

of this morning’s dim light.

And yet,

there is a growing tinge of green

screened by tufts of last year’s dying,

faint but filling in

the burned spaces of the pasture

and along the ditch bank:

A seasonal freshening coming,

ancient roots sending up the renewal of spring,

filling in the barren patches

of winter’s scourging.

H. Arnett

3/31/11