The eastering I look for
in these steadily advancing
latter years lies far beyond
all banners, brasses, lilies banked
in resurrection rows of waxen white,
will not be forceable in any way
like golden-starred forsythia
winter cut and warmed to yield
its long stemmed foretaste
leaning into spring,
will probably, I fear,
be ushered in by pain,
the body aches of aging
and that deeper hurt that moves,
soul-wise, across time’s tracing
on the place where passions dwell.
The eastering I look for
looks for me, I’m coming to suspect,
suggests itself in soft, latefalling
snowflakes, waves in passing with
the wind through last fall’s drear,
tenacious-clinging leaves along
the sycamores and leaps across
alarming walks and alleyways
and yards, shadowing my wary
tread with timelessness in shards
of strangely dark, yet dazzling
fragmentary light.
—J. Barrie Shepherd
