You know blessings begin with breath,
Dürer’s holy dove as bright and curved
As a lung.
In winter, snow breaks
Into pieces like a cough,
And as a child I breathed frozen needles.
Was that the Latin, inspiritus?
You’ll never hear the still small voice*.
Listen instead to the grey
Swelling in the branches
Of the elms.
Ignore your knuckles so dry they bleed.
Concentrate on the first hint of warmth
From the driven sun, and learn the words
Sharpened for millennia by the holly.
* “. . . after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.” 1 Kings 19:12.