Light

The leafless chestnut forms a border where
    the scruffy winter garden ends in grey;
beside this dingy scrap there's nothing there

but an oppressive silence that will stay
    as dense and cold as all my long, lost years
until the sun's first hesitating ray

breaks through the mist to dress each bough in tears
    that glisten as the beams increase their zest
and before long this early walker hears

anew sweet strains of birdsong, and my breast
    feels lighter after all the mist has lifted -
a sunny cheerfulness that's manifest

in a wide grin.  The sun, no longer sifted
    through wisps of cloud, sets all the place aglow
now nature's mournful tune at last has shifted –

no longer does it sing of pain and woe;
    it sings of hope and warmth, and what may come
and of the pleasures that it will bestow,

as the old sun's good cheer removes the glum
    half-darkness of my stagnant years, the grime
defeat has left behind, and warms my numb

cold bones the way it makes a day sublime
    from what seems inauspicious, takes my care
and lets me have some joy while there's still time!