What hope we hold for spring!
What desire for winter’s green promise,
the yielding of frozen earth to warming winds
and the fresh sending of seed’s anchored plantings!

What joy we long to release
beneath unceasing blue skies
that spread across the prairie’s waving stems,
last year’s growth grown old and pale!

What longing we have for the good rains
that will end the long drought,
bring cattle back to cracked-bank ponds,
and swirl the streams that wind along the seams of rock!

How our hearts have ached
through the unbroken weight of blackened fields,
untilled soil between miles of burnt fences,
and the constant threat of wind-driven embers!

What hope,
what joy,
what longing,
what pain!

And yet we stand in this land of ache and promise,
we kneel in this life of want and wavering,
we fall down and rise again,
pray in quavering faith

to the God who giveth and who taketh away.
Blessed be his name.

H. Arnett
3/21/18