A Letter to Crocus Sativus

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

A Poem by Elizabeth Wickland

You push through snow,

proclaiming the violence of winter,

bruise blooming beneath

fair flesh in early spring.

In all that winter did not kill

with attempted starvation,

hateful chill, gathering strength

for the sortie, you rally the cry:

Life! Rising from the dark

depths, buried deep like death,

we are not dead. These violet ends

pierce the surface, dancing

to the drum of a heart that still beats.

Battered, yet breathing, bruises

are the first marks of resurrection.

Spilled blood flows, sap surges,

sleepers stir, and old rises new.

Plunge, purple dagger, into cold

hiemal stasis-- and awaken wonder

suspended within my cold heart, too.

Elizabeth Wickland lives in Bozeman, Montana with her husband, daughter, and two Yorkies. She has a love for words and their stories and has responded to life through poetry and art for as long as she can remember. She also enjoys gardening and cultivating beauty in her small corner of the world, whether in person or online. She writes for The Black Barn Online, and her work has been published in The Unmooring, Calla Press, The Way Back to Ourselves, and The Rabbit Room Poetry Substack, among others. You can find her on Instagram at @punamulta.priory and at elizabethwickland.substack.com.