Honour the space between no longer and not yet — Nancy Levin

Liminal days

Caught in apricity 
as I savour the unexpected 
warmth of this wintry
sun, arriving soon after
a deluge of rain, witnessing 
the drama which unfolds
in contrasts, where light kisses dark
and light doesn’t pull back
because it carries 
difference in its golden heart.

These are liminal 
days, dancing on the edge
where a new season appears
to break, with sun revealing 
snowdrops, crocuses, incipient
daffodils, tender green fronds 
of beautiful bluebells to come,
eclipsed by what remains—
the spare, bare bones of winter
still grimly holding on.

My soul sits in ice sometimes 
because it’s waiting for a thaw
to relax it into love, plant it
in peace, persuade it to take 
a deeper breath, a longer
look, a calmer exhale, 
and to shift gratitude to 
a whole new level, as I face
the need to open up
to mercy flowering from above.

It isn’t arduous,
it doesn’t take much at all 
for us to reorient ourselves 
back to joy and faith when 
we see evidence of spring,
note vital change occurring 
and sense our souls being
set adrift, freed from winter’s 
harsher grip, as we float calmly
toward signs of hope unzipped. 
© joylenton