Time Skirts

My mind and eyes believed frost always thawed
And it was the sun who whisked it away
It was gone when a worm poked its head through the sod
And when the boreal creatures and critters played

I muse about this, like cats do of mice
As I urge spring's snowdrop to edge and push through
The ribbon skirts of dirt and rocks and ice
Now knowing the frost is crystallized dew

I recall searching for fairy knolls in rabbit holes
Although I knew they were surely hidden well –
Burrowed beneath hills, made with walls of gold
(Now I’m just taller, so it’s even harder to tell)

When the smoke of time rises, I can take a peek
And see what I thought crumbled only changed hands
My grandmother’s grandmother’s bones are not weak
Even if broken and buried beneath the sand

The pebbles are merely misshapen by our busy fingers
She is present always because the past forever lingers.