Kristy Gledhill

You’re Done

If you’ve spied the tender, mud-
bound shoot—once the day has shown
some faint sign of lengthening—
its twin pokes its promise
from your sleepy, light-deprived
winter mind, and you’re done:
everything yearning, up-leaping
to each fresh sign—buds
plumpening, a turbulence
of birdsong urging them up,
up, the direction of eyes, limbs,
songs, shoots, temps, hands,
light, wings, sap is up.
Winter is up.

Kristy Gledhill writes poetry in western Washington on unceded Coast Salish land. She is a writer, yoga teacher and activist working for social justice. She was a finalist in Terrain.org’s 11th Annual Contest in Poetry and her work has appeared in Creative Colloquy.