She sweeps with many-colored brooms
stoops, puts fingers in the dust.
The dust from muddy boots
walking fields and forests gone,
walking roads now weeds and gravel.
The sign says:
Road Not Maintained.
Where did it lead when
traveled by cart or sled
filled with laughing children.
The dust from shoes
well-worn through city streets
polished at night to keep
them glowing, however softly.
Shoes that once had danced
with love warmed by the fire,
shoes that never looked old.
The dust from children's feet
running in to warm cold toes.
Tiny feet that stumbled
through pebbles in the stream,
feet that squished mud between the toes,
cold toes.
She sweeps with many-colored brooms.
Yellow for the early flowers,
coltsfoot, daffodils, forsythia.
Promising, promising.
Green for the fields
waking from their brown slumber,
for the trees softening
their stick silhouettes
with mouse-ear leaves.
Lavender for the smells
of spring. Lilac, hyacinth, peony.
Lavender for the sachet
in the bureau drawers.
Reminding, through the winter,
reminding of spring.
Red for the heart.
For love.
For the hearts that beat
and for the hearts
that cannot.
She sweeps with many-colored brooms.
(inspired by a poem by Emily Dickinson)
