Something woke me

Something woke me. Early.

        Frost had painted

        the morning white.

        A crackled silence.

        Bird calls were swallowed

        in the blue ice of dawn.

        Nothing moved.

        But something woke me.

        I unlocked the door

        into the deep stillness of a winter day.

        The immobility of a chilled moment.

        Caught between colour

        the leafless definition of the season.

        But something woke me.

        In scarf and coat I searched and found

        in the northern corner of the yard

        the yellow-throated orange flowers

        of clivia bloomed

        in trumpets of O Tannenbaum.