Tunnel Vision       Every evening I enter this tunnel called winter,         The new light at each day's end egging me on.         It is not a long drive to the school,         As if someone, or something has predetermined         The exact amount of time, and coordinated it         With the last stretch of musk melon sky         That highlights the barren hulks of trees         Surrounding the campus where shadows         Of students move in quick silence against         The night's chill. This is how the season         Will pass- Each month's weather splattered         On the walls of winter like so much graffiti,         A collage of thaws and cold snaps, snowfall,         And rain, unbearably bright days too frigid         For fun, windy nights with too many stars,         And a glowing monster of a moon, too close         To make use of the new Christmas telescope.         Until suddenly, on a late afternoon in April,         The lingering light at the end of the tunnel         Becomes a tunnel itself, an eternal portal         Through which all things must enter,         If this is why the sun returns to us again,         And our hands push forward an hour of time         With the swift and easy motion of a wing,         As if small shapes and sounds depended on it.         © Dale A. Edmands       Please visit this author's personal web pages:       Kookamonga Square,  Poetry Hall,  and              Prother's Pages

Seeds Waiting for spring, You sit window-watching The rain darken   Your new garden earth. Inside this grey room, Surrounded by Forsythia, You leaf through packets Of Zinnia and Marigold. While inside you, Still yet another seed, Some nine months grown, Stirs in its own wet world, Unaware of seasons, Sensing more your impatience. © Dale A. Edmands