Ash Wednesday: Trusting in the Sun
It will return. It is
returning. Six o’clock
and already the winter candle
light is not a sharp
circle on the table.
It was a tough
winter, a tough fall.
Four dead, my own
new scars, the surprise
of seventy years.
I’m needing morning
bird song—a robin,
a cardinal. I’m needing
good news. And today
the reversal—just as the sun
is warming through the wind,
as the maples are giving
their juice, my old
religion makes it Lent.
Well, all right.
If the meat is gone,
I might as well fast.
Someday again, days
will be longer than nights.
I just have to wait.
GladErrand 
It’s coming. Working its way north. Already we have cardinals and robins, forsythia and daffodils in northern Virginia. You’ll get yours soon.