jewels
Emergence I steel myself to step outside. A final glance through the window reveals crystal blue skies, an early sun gilding black branches, glittering frost in pockets of shadow on the borders; riming emerald crocus spears. “Bury them deep. Bulbs are a promise of brighter days. Like treasure.” These were almost his final words to me, as we laboured last autumn. “Golds, amethysts, pearls. Riches for when you’ll need them most. Afterwards.” I’d been wrapped in a smothering duvet of despair. Since. With neither the will nor strength to cast it off. My heart a bitter winter graveyard of grief. Yet today breaks, somehow, differently. Those resolute crocuses will have pushed their way through earth like iron, just as he’d promised. A reminder that hard winters do fall away, springtime does return, offering renewal. I crack open my door. Birdsong drifts in and calls me out into a newly defined world. Photo is the authors own