One winter day I wandered
Alone inside a park
With thoughts of how I’d squandered The light in me for dark
In wayward years gone by.
And though that time’s behind me,
It still can draw a sigh.
Still brooding, I considered
The world and all its pain;
How hope by hope it’s withered
Till little else remains
Beyond its empty greed.
We sense in us a mourning
Whose tears we can’t concede.
And then, though nearly hidden
A snowdrop caught my eye,
So sweet and so unbidden
As there it beautified
Its dirtied patch of snow.
It claimed a tiny victory
Whose terms I still don’t know.
Jeffrey Essman's poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, print and online, among them Dappled Things, America Magazine, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Pensive, the Society of Classical Poets, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery where he serves as an oblate. He is also editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.