Snowdrops, by Louise Glück

Snowdrops 

Poem by Louise Glück 

Do you know what I was, how I lived? 

You know 

what despair is; then 

winter should have meaning for you. 

I did not expect to survive, 

earth suppressing me. I didn't expect 

to waken again, to feel 

in damp earth my body 

able to respond again, remembering 

after so long how to open again 

in the cold light 

of earliest spring-- 

afraid, yes, but among you again 

crying yes risk joy 

in the raw wind of the new world. 

from The Wild Iris by Louise Glück 

Ecco, 1993