The Widow’s Lament in Springtime

Sorrow is my own yard

where the new grass

flames as it has

year after year.

And yet I am not

yet through

with saying that

it is a happy

ground.

I am a little

ear, anchor

as in April

the burning

of the hill.

Uncut flowers, pinched

and held on.

Let me rest in the hour

of spring’s failure.

• William Carlos Williams