One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow

by Olivia Hawker

It’s winter that raises the apple from the earth. The bitter cold, the ice like knives, the crystals of ice underground that cut into the hard coat and breach the soft, pale place inside where root and stem and leaf are one. The apple won’t be coddled. Until it knows true suffering, the seed won’t sprout at all. The tree will never live.

One for the blackbird, one for the crow, one for the cutworm, and one to grow.

Let joy run out of me. Let it soak the barren ground of this house—my home—and let something new and bright grow up from the field of my past bitterness.

All will be well. By and by, all will be well.