The Promise of Crocuses

Winter’s retreating flood
trickles to thin gruel of mud.
Her skin sings with a soprano itch
while cloudy billows roll and pitch,
and teacher’s purple cloaks the valleys,
snatched by the wind in the dearth of trees.
A hat perches on her head, a mauve oblique,
a determined dash across a crown of snowy peaks,
it echoes in Aubretia’s afterglow of magenta and gold,
promises crocuses on the nature table when spring unfolds.