I was born in a springtime blizzard.
I know to expect storms that run roughshod
over delicate crocuses poking their stubby
buds from the hard, freeze-weary earth.
I read the news each day—of men trafficking
in children with bluster and impunity,
of blue butterfly girls detained in cells,
out of sight, where they learn to withstand
the cold sting of humanity’s turned back
and our leaders’ smug shrugged shoulders.
This is the way winter is, they say.
But seasons change. And I know,
in my small, weathered body, we are built
to stand up to gales and thunder, to the old
guard of winter’s flailing bravado.
These storms, we will ride them out. We stretch
and yawn, gather force under hostile conditions.
Today, we call forth a new season.
Ann E. Wallace is Poet Laureate Emeritus of Jersey City, New Jersey and the author of Keeping Room(Nixes Mate, 2026), Days of Grace and Silence: A Chronicle of COVID's Long Haul (Kelsay Books, 2024) and Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag, 2019). You can follow her on Instagram @annwallace409.
