Like a Bird in the Winter

by Sandra Rippetoe copyright 2017
for Ben Muncy

January grayness fills the air.
The sunlight is hiding ‘till a warm spring day.
Still. I need. Just a tiny bit of joy.

The sunlight is hiding . . . but . . . what is that?
Just a twinkle of light in your eye,
but as warm as an evening at the end of June.

A twinkle of light shines through branches
where the trees meet the sky. It’s a holy place
(since the traveling spirits like to rest there).

Where the trees meet, I watch the bare branches
dancing in the wind. My tiny joy arrives
like a bird in the winter.