In Early Spring

The blue ball of the water tower

rises above the thin

line of crooked branches

that thorn upward

against the sky.

In these patches of wood

a thin layer of soil

is softening

over the frozen ground.

A pond is quiet & dark.

In this time, when winter

has melted,

before the birds return, before the

leaves bud and pop

into green flower

a warm body leaves its bed,

enters the darkness of the hallway

step after step,

mind clouded

like a white sky.

Josh Mooney