the lenten rose

this year, i can't help but notice both Valentine's and Ash Wednesday/the start of Lent fall today, on the same day.

hellebore "lenten rose" in '21 ice storm
 photo
by Anne Richardson

the lenten rose

"the world, aflame all around me, has become completely luminous from within."--Teilhard de Chardin

i've seen you

midwinter, ice-

encased every petal

crimson flash

preserved

healing light

and you've witnessed

my heart much the same

shocked out of beating

held in mercy, really

and fire

then our thaw

no worse for frost

first drips freeing us

like a cryogenic prayer

in reverse

of the 

re-exposed to air

elemental trust

everyone would

say 'tough' and praise

us as such

Sacred Heart's

we both know 

tenderness is the 

bloom

not giving up but over

grief's turning of us,

the 

Lenten Rose

--ls 2.14.24

hellebore after the frost
photo by Anne Richardson