Your Gift

In this cold, bleak season,
the cover of green long gone,
all kinds of messiness is exposed.
The world looks stark,
turning thoughts to gray.

Then,
one, small, lovely thing
breaks through the gloom-
a simple kindness, perhaps,
that might have been overlooked
during more lush times,
and there is a shift,
a softening.

I am reminded that,
in this bleak season,
it is up to each of us
to share our loveliness.

We have to believe,
beyond evidence to the contrary,
that the world,
or at least someone in it,
desperately needs
what we have to give.

The impact
is not ours
to understand.

By Maria Brady-Smith
Photo by Mike Smith