Who Makes the Seasons Change?

By: Spencer Clark French

For A.J. 

It appeared in the middle of February—
A tiny knob, dormant potentiality. 
I was shocked still on my chilled stroll 
by a bud on the fingertip of a small tree. 
But I stood with raptured bemusement
at that miracle damned by prematurity—
this velvet cocoon would not, 
surely, could not survive this cold. 

Though it did for many days—
precarious olive oblong, 
diminutive, tight-furled fist
smooth as skin—persisting
with the silence of a Trappist.  

Then the ice came.
One day I found the pre-leaf
brittlely casked by wormed wintry glass. 
And this was the day the cynic won. 
I walked away
heart as hard as that frozen knot.  

But when the sun came the next, 
that unyielding sprout was all the same:
swaying in its quiet solemnity—
minute ovoid hope,
almond of resurrection… 

Who makes the seasons change? 
Who melts the frigid, warms the numbed? 
That day, my chest changed affection, 
and then, not long after, 
she blossomed.