Low valley, full of my reposing youth,
Now rising quick: how lovely are your bare
Sloping shoulders, browned by sun. White snow
Lies crusted in the paths wound down through woods
Beside the creek that courses softly smooth.
The mucky mud and grass sing spring is near,
And mossy bark revives in morning’s glow,
Where drawling creek beds slur with melting floods.
Come whisper now, my silent, sleeping youth,
As spiders weave, a melody prepare,
And on your bed of matted leaves lie low,
And once more let me wander through your woods,
And shatter not the ice the stream will break,
But let me follow in the morning’s wake.
Your pen has taken me again on a walk long past, back to my secret places in those woods and along that creek bed of my youth. Those memories sweet reminders of the frosty mornings that no longer held their dreary repose when the soft and warming rays of the sun began to find the shadows that much sooner every morning. sister JAC