Under the gray crust of snow,
frozen in the chaff of fallen years,
wet leaf-meal clotting into soil,
the O-horizon's deep black sky
spangled with frozen stars,
something moves at last.
And a maple key,
dreaming where it lit
on two stiff wings,
veined like the wings
of a dragonfly,
two hundred nights ago
stirs in its sleep,
opening at the touch of water,
giving everything
for one pale root
to slide into the loosening world,
for a tender stem and two round leaves.