Looking both ways
like Janus in January,
I find the dead buds
near the woodpile
hiding
in my warm smoke-filled hair.
Small and tight and never opened,
they speak to winter
and further back
the other deaths
and blossomings that never happened.
Such is the breadth of my rapture
in the protection of this year’s snowfall
that I can’t help seeing
their tiny perfection
as a promise of springtime.