I entreat you, do not speak the words aloud.
Don’t speak them harshly, or pronounce them delicately, or even lend them your voice at its gentlest whisper.
If you were to sound them out now and set them free to fly off the page, they would only flutter a moment and die
Freshly penned, just saplings now, newly alive and yearning to become something more
But they have not yet been tried by their first winter
They have never been weighed or bent by hungry midnight crows
And they do not know how it feels to be strained by the wind of a furious squall till they should snap
But afterward straighten again anyway because the sole alternative is surrender
They must be shielded from winter’s spiteful teeth, bundled in cloths
Protected and warm in a textile igloo,
Hidden until Spring brings well-meaning rain and the nurturing sun.
If they make it to Spring, then they may go free, inked wings dried and iridescent,
But it isn’t always that simple.
So until then, I implore you to visit them privately when the world is breathless
When babies and daylilies sleep, when lovers meet
And the cloaking darkness rushes snugly into the spaces around you,
Weighted down by the bedsheet of stars...
If indeed you must wake them at all.
Lift them gingerly, be kind, and when you’re through lay them back to rest
That they might strengthen and,
If they are meant to,
Find their way to Spring.