Where Tenderness Endures

In the hush between first snow
and morning sun’s return,
a bloom defied the silence—
fragile, pink, and firm.

The world had gone to crystal,
each branch a glassy thread,
yet still it rose, that flower,
where all had thought life dead.

I knelt beside its wonder,
my breath a fading cloud,
and whispered all my heartache—
it listened, still and proud.

A lesson carved in petals:
not every end is loss.
Some hearts, though bruised by winter,
will always find the frost
a place to bloom.

© Susie Stiles-Wolf