80spoems/winter

I cannot recall the precise day
I first heard the word hibernate,
but the sweet tingle of learning
the word still lingers, though it
has taken me all these years since
to embrace its lesson.

Now I learn winter.
Like the black bear
I am in the deepest quiet,
attend to the only necessity,
suckling my young.

I learn the posture of gestation,
come to claim its soothing rhythm
as my own, knowing in spring
I will be glad I have taken
this long rest.

I confine myself to the cave willingly,
and it is the act of choice which
transforms it from suppression to shelter,
all that I am intent on new life,
untempted by the possibilities of spring,
only knowing the sublime
value of the seed, reconciled
to its requirements,
but what is the word for that?

Now I listen to all that winter
has to tell me,
to nestle in with my own
steady pulse.
Communion, she says,
the word is communion.
In Sanskrit we call it
sang.