For those located in the colder areas of the Northern Hemisphere, this stretch of time—after the new year and before the return of the green and growth—can be one of the hardest in which to find a glimmer of hope. Here in Vermont, the skiers revel, but the remainder of us are more than ready for tiny green shoots and the cacophony of peepers as living full-color proof that death leads to life–regeneration is all around us. We crawl up out of the safe, warm mud where we've hidden these long, cold months to find a world reborn.
This poem by Lauren de Boer is a small sparkle of spring we send to all of you immersed in the depths of winter while you lay waiting deep at the bottom of the pond to be renewed again.
All There Needs to Be
By K. Lauren de Boer
When I hear the minuscule frog
that appears each spring in our backyard pond,
the one with the huge voice;
and witness the hummingbird’s morning rounds,
burying her beak in the red salvia in
their pots on the deck, then I am
aware, again, of all of the seemingly
simple things that fly beyond
the stench of power and politics,
above the knelling, like a steeple bell,
of life’s parade of losses. These little
praises appear again and again, free,
un-ownable, like sun-shadows shedding
delight—and we will always have that
touchstone: the delirious sip of nectar,
the frog song buoying up at dusk
through the screen door, to remind us
of our imperfect love for each other
and for the world, to say, over
and over: it is enough. It is all there is,
Today, and all there needs to be.
For more about Lauren and his work, go to https://terravitabooks.net