Clancy shares this poem, with this introduction: There are times in life where I’ve felt like I’m floundering… bobbing along with no direction and accomplishing very little. It was during one of those times, a January in my life, that I realized, as I walked past my flower garden wherein lay the frozen roots of perennial flowers and shrubs, that something happens to those roots in those cold, dark times that cycle through every year. I don’t understand the physics or biological processes that occur, but the results, when the weather warms, is the beautiful conclusion of that process that I don’t fully understand. From that life-metaphor came this poem which helped me have the faith to get through my own dark, cold cycle in life.

Green and lush, with fragrance sweet
And variegated colors,
The flower thrives on warm summer days
With sun and soil and water.

As days grow short and seasons change,
The blossom dies, the color fades,
Withdrawing into its stable roots
Vitality that held the bloom.

Clouds roll in, and snows descend,
Covering life with a blanket.
Sounds are hushed. Life is still,
But growth goes on beneath it.

What growth occurs, the eye can’t see,
The blanket quietly hides,
While covered up with frost and earth
The root grows strong inside.

Gently loosening it’s hold,
The frost begets the waters’ flow.
Days grow longer. Life awakes.
The dormant root, its quiet breaks.

Shoots reach up with perfect faith,
The cold a forgotten friend,
Through the earth ’til surface breaks
Where life begins again.

Harsh, though, that blanket seems
Of cold and snow and frozen earth,
Life demands those quiet times
Where after comes rebirth.

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