MUD MORNING

All the snows
of this long winter
have melted.

The wind
has finally let go 
of its complaints. 

The trees’ bare
branches slump
exhausted.

We inhale.
All of us.

Land, trees,
irises in
their coats
of soil

the damp 
bent dead 
of last year’s
grass 

and me in my 
woman’s shell,
waiting.

Diane Silver is an essayist, journalist, and Pushcart Prize-nominated poet whose work has been published in Ms, The Lavender Review, The Coop, the anthology Kansas Speaks Out: Poems in an Age of Me, Too, and many other publications. Her books include the Daily Shot of Hope meditation series. Every Tuesday she publishes new essays on her Substack, Poetry & Life, at dianesilver.substack.com.