It came again this year. Timed just right for destruction, just as in the past three.

I watched it grow, up from the grass, in swaths across the dawn-blurred lawn, beckoned forth by the rising sun.

It etched paths criss-cross on  new mown grass.

.

Thick it came on roofs,  chilling white blanket.

 

And the apple tree, it just stood there and took it.

What else could it do?

The tender young crops in their wooden boxes we could cover with shields that held in warmth. But not the tree.

 

 

 

And so, for three years past, and now again for four, we will see no fruit.

Frostration.

Have you lived it? The biting off, to death, of efforts from your heart, so earnestly and painstakingly prepared? Again. And again?

I know how that is.

Yet at my window, the birds still sing.

*****