Sowing in the Snow

by Bryce Milligan

          The Truth must dazzle gradually
          Or every man be blind.
                    — Emily Dickinson

Deep in this bleak midwinter
our hope has gone astray;
now horsemen come

and serpents stir where
saints have sown their
gardens of endurance.

Time was we bled for mountain dreams
and marched beyond the bridge of fate;
now discontent is seething.

Would that we lived where truth
could truly blind — but now beneath
the snow their moles have tunneled

to topple the ancient orchard.
Now horsemen ride among the ruins
to carry off the spoils

while behind their great blind army
burns root and stem alike,
churns truth into ash and mud.

What can we do, poor as we are,
to turn this tide of greed and lies
but resist, rebuild, reseed.