Awakening

She blinks her eyes open to rumors of streams,
Faint music mingled with the songs of birds.
Such faint living melody has haunted all her dreams,
Has put in her such melancholy as is not part of words,
Has made her deep longing a little absurd,

For what reality to dreaming can ever compare?
She stretches and lifts her arms to the sky,
Even though for disappointment she must yet prepare,
And turns her gaze to the realms where the birds fly.
Her gasp of delight is more like an astounded sigh.

For there are birds there, and their voices sweet
Are the bright reality of what she heard as shadow.
Their shadows on the grund, skimming so fleet,
Are yet brighter and more lasting than their muted echo
That drummed in her head all these months she lay under snow.

She stretches to the world her arms cloaked in leaf,
Becomes each tree and bird, each flowing stream.
The spring has awakened again from her wintry grief,
Has found the courage to face that things are not as they seem--
No, they are better than could possibly be any snow-stoppered dream.