Constancy

Again this year on the shortest day
when the temperature rose
above freezing and the adhering snow
made everything Christmas:
Two pussy willow catkins slipped
through their husks. But just those
teasing few. The next weeks
saw glimpses of more light–
and by March, enough,
until finally this evening, pearls of catkins
illumine the willow’s branches.
And I remember
in the days of this doubling of light
that catkins must emerge,
seeming to know
what we should know, too:
That it takes a constant light,
rather than what dazzles us
on a single blinding winter’s day,
to push aside what holds us contained.

“Constancy” was previously published in the Amethyst Review.