Thaw

The ice remembers its old shape but water has other ideas— a crack becomes a whisper, becomes a hymn. Between the bare branches, light falls like something released from a long breath held.

The earth unlocks its secrets slowly, first a color (green, so green), then a sound (everything rushing)— the thaw is not gentle, despite its reputation. It drowns, it overwhelms, it rewrites every small corner of frozen certainty.

We are all thawing in our way, each of us a season turning inside out, learning to trust the soft ground again, the pulse beneath the crust, the refusal to stay broken.