Last night, closing the door,
I blessed them - they said
nothing,
feeling already invisible icy
fingers
creeping up the bed,
insistent breathing in the hollow
dark,
stifling their shouted scarlet
days.
They curled away a little, hanging
helpless under open-wide
mortality,
eyed the threatening moon, grew
still
and cold.
This morning, opening the door,
I blessed them still - they greeted
me
with the flushed, happy faces of
children,
dewed with sleep;
my geraniums had survived the
night.
There was no frost.
(November,
1991)
