Just before spring we must learn to love
the palpable dark, where blue lacy shadows
unfurl extravagantly in hoarfrosted ditches
until there’s only the path shining home.
What was cold, bare, and dreary
has passed or is nearly passing.
Where fear ends, one may
appraise the full measure of the world.
Detect it in the infinitesimal changes
at eveningtide, after light lengthens
by capacious seconds. I can imagine
the future: subtle, effervescent, and tender,
as if time could perch in my palm,
a tight bud ready to burst
free and evergreen. Tether heart
to its alchemy of will and intention
full of things that have never been.
Between the nearly flowering ditches
set aside room for a wish, desire,
for its tenancy and full leafage.
Phillina Sun was born in California to Cambodian refugees and educated at University of California, Berkeley and National University of Ireland, Galway. She lives in County Leitrim and writes about visual art and film. Her most recent publication is A Woman Walks Alone At Night, With A Camera, which examines the figure of the flâneuse through the photography of Galway-based artist Ruby Wallis.
