last icicle hanging

by Jill Crainshaw


it broke free
or did it let go
just as I walked by
mulling over the frailty
durability 
vulnerability of 
human life

we create
find
hope for 
each next foothold 
as we pick our way across
cloud-camouflaged dreamways

i retraced my steps
to take another look
the icicle stood 
a stalagmite now
sun-slick
waiting
like me
to birth another spring


* * * * *

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She enjoys exploring how words give voice to unexpected ideas, insights and visions.