February: Thinking of Flowers

Now the wind torments the field,
turning the white surface back
on itself, back and back on itself,
like an animal licking a wound. 

Nothing but white — the air, the light;
only one brown milkweed pod
bobbing in the gully, smallest
brown boat on the immense tide. 

A single green sprouting thing
would restore me. . . . 

Then think of the tall delphinium,
swaying, or the bee when it comes
to the tongue of the burgundy lily.

— Jane Kenyon, Otherwise: New and Collected Poems, 1996