CALL ME BELOVED

sunday sidewalks begin to peek from beneath the ice,
and I’ve heard it somewhere before, that the earth is warming
into a well deserved embrace, into the searching kindness
that makes us all brighter in the sun.
I feel it now, wrapped and waiting –
smelling like springtime in February and my clothes
feel heavy and warm on my body.

I sense the silence ending – ice cracks under foot,
melting steady and bleeding down the gutters.
the people rumbling down the sidewalks open their coats,
and I open my heart to them. we follow our roads home,
lit up with the same foggy hope that warms us.