Draft in the author’s style. This poem was written for Poet of Rain & Harvest to sit beside the author’s own readings, and is waiting for the author’s review. The commentary is a working draft too.
When the harvest is all over and the fields have turned to snow,
There are seeds asleep in the soil, in the dark and warm below.
They do not fear the winter, and they do not fear the frost,
For they know that in the darkness, nothing that is sown is lost.
They dream of April showers and the sun's return to stay,
And the green and rising stems that will shoot up in May.
So it is with all our hopes, in the winters of our years,
They sleep beneath the surface, wrapped in patience and in tears.
But the seed knows how to wait, and how to trust the spring,
And to break the frozen ground when the bells of April ring.
So rest, my sleeping seeds, and rest, my hopeful heart,
For every waking spring begins with winter's quiet art.
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Commentary
Winter is the quiet chapter of the farming year. This poem looks under the snow and finds seeds asleep, and it uses them as a picture of every hope waiting for its season.
“When the harvest is all over and the fields have turned to snow, there are seeds asleep in the soil.” They “do not fear the winter,” for “nothing that is sown is lost.” They “dream of April showers and the sun’s return to stay.”
The poem then turns to the reader: “so it is with all our hopes, in the winters of our years, they sleep beneath the surface, wrapped in patience and in tears.” But “the seed knows how to wait, and how to trust the spring.” It ends by saying, “every waking spring begins with winter’s quiet art.”