edited by Doug Holder

Now in the winter of our discontent we look to spring for rebirth and renewal. Like a bad depression, winter, when you are in the maw of it, seems to be endless. Somerville poet Michael Todd Steffen reminds us that what is barren now will be fecund in several months.

Remembering our Orchard

Trees stood all winter like cattle in the field
Naked of their leaves in wind and snow,
Their extremities advanced like blind men reading
Braille from the lines of wind which made them
tremble.

To look at them for long you would remember
How superficial winter’s hardest freeze
Compared to their roots deep as the cemetery’s
Shelters where uncles were stirring herring stew.

Dull-lidded looks as I walked home from school
With no more than a candle’s wit myself
Shook a head of disparagement at these
Wastes of nature, counting them for dead,

Blind to another evening I would wake
To wafts of blossoms through the open window
Recalling wicker baskets. I could just see
The swells of ripening in their fingers ache.

—Michael Todd Steffen