Winter Séances Poem by Mark Heathcote

Life's forgotten how to smile.
Its little winter séances—
set a scene of bewilderment
like mistletoes bedraggled penance.

The dramatization waits.
Kneeling behind every tuft
awakening behind every hedgerow.
'Hibernation is slowly rebuffed.'

Life again begins to smile.
And birds sing in the valley
and spread mistletoe,
by their scraggy toes so happily.

Death, on the contrary, frowns
where the thistle downs
rise and fall jauntily.
Here alights a rainbow atop the clouds.

And entire fields of flower
ringing in their golden heads
turn to see us in our trampling steps
that has thrown aback their winding bedspreads.