It is okay to be numb today,
to be stuck, to not want to move.
It is okay to be so exhausted
with the ache of meeting the world
that even the extravagant apple blossoms,
all fragrant and fluttersome,
look like dingy white scraps, used tissues.
It is necessary, even natural
to sometimes shut down,
to let the self be cold.
The wood frog can freeze
up to seventy percent of its body water,
can stop its own heart from beating,
It knows that to freeze for a season
is one way to survive.
It will thaw and revive come spring.
It’s okay for a time to slow down.
To slow to stopping.
To be more solid than flow.
I remember the years in the orchard when,
on the coldest nights, we watered the trees,
knowing how the process of freezing itself
releases latent heat and becomes
a source of warmth for its surroundings.
Oh wisdom of freezing. It’s not without cost.
Every fruit grower knows that some years,
there are no apples. That is how it is.
Other years, we delight in what ripens.
Those years, we feast on the sweetness.