Between the Thaw

The ice remembers nothing of itself— only the slow drip, the creeping dark beneath, where roots stir in their sleep.

In this suspension, this caught breath, the earth doesn't bloom yet. It listens. Each stone glazed with yesterday's frost, waiting for a warmth it can't yet name.

The birds arrive in question marks, uncertain songs testing the air. What wakes before the world is ready?

I stand where winter still holds corners, where shadow pools gather like memory. The day reaches for me— I'm not sure I'm ready to reach back.

But the ice breaks softer now, and something in my chest breaks with it, a small and necessary thaw.