Shifting Shapes

Now, as the gardens of the land,

snow-freed, wake to a new command,

I think of an ancient promise kept

as the great fern forests, when they slept,

arose to an unforeseen renewal

as coal: the source of light and fuel.

I think how firelight that burned

in shifting patterns then returned

some to what they once were: giant ferns.

And I think, as sometimes I may pass

my shadowy image in the glass,

a veiled mist fleetingly withdraws

and I see without reason, without cause,

changes in the one I am, the one I was.