When the stars fail you,
sit under a tree
and it will tell you everything.
What’s old is always new again,
the crocus corm breaking
through the same tight skin
of earth that shrouds
last year’s litterfall. How love
can make room inside
the dim arc of a crescent moon.
…
All the old things
come back eventually,
always the return of what I want
that will not be.
My wild wind shouldering
a locked door
as if someone’s coming home
as if I don’t live alone.
I don’t know
what to do anymore, this heart
always pulling toward the light
always refusing to doubt.
…
But watch the tender ones
that rise at the first sign of spring.
They never learn,
falling for the same old thing
swept in by a southern wind,
It’s time, it’s time. This time.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 1.
Angie Crea O’Neal’s work has appeared in The Christian Century, the Cumberland River Review, and Sycamore Review, among others. Her first full-length collection, This Persistent Gravity, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2023. She is currently empty-nesting with her two rescue dogs.
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