Dawning

Ice grows through the night,
descending like tongues
from remnant leaves,
from clothespins left on the line.

Morning reveals the frozen Pentecost.
Trees hang low under the weight of calling.
I hear them creak and crack
in my own dialect.

I want to believe this day changes the world.
I want to believe a spirit can bend me
like a tree, fill my hollows with light,
make me shiny-voiced and new.

*

Village Encounter
      Luke 24:13-35

Fleshy sky-skin,
bulged and bruised,
folds down over the meadow,
over the dandelions greeting the day.
The land slowly turns
against its heavy shroud, rising.

Finches ribbon my world
with purple and gold flights.
They lace all things together.
They know something
I don’t. They break open my seeds,
my eyes, then disappear.

*

Janice L. Freytag currently resides in Souderton, PA. She began writing poetry after working in post-war Bosnia. Her poems have appeared in Radix, Relief, Saint Katherine Review, Windhover and others. In addition to poetry, she has written four children’s musicals. She is an enthusiastic, though not always successful, gardener.