For those who stand out in the snow
with a field of spikes around them,
who wait for villagers to shoot
their hearts with flaming arrows,
for those who feed the jackdaws,
voles, the burrows full of warm
demanding creatures which gnaw
and tear their flesh to pieces,
for those who rise again just as the days
are shortest,
some holidays can be a burden.
My mother and her mother and her mother
died midwinter. O to be a seed again
O to gambol by moonlight,
my shadow dark as honey made
from buckwheat flowers.