Posted on February 9, 2026 by Jenn Zatopek

HALFWAY TO SPRING

I knew a woman who called herself
the Walking Wounded. Sophie and I sat
on her dingy couch, her sadness a flood
of memory I felt but was unable
to speak until I, too, become her–

Failed work program in Wilkes-Barree,
moving back to Texas after university,
my father’s scraps of tenderness gone
in the wake of his violent storms
no one cared to listen to or believe.

No one wants to hear stories like this.
We all have stories to hear like this. 

What helps as the past sidles up,
whispering pain is your only story
are the monks, the Minnesotans;
how walking together is invitational
a prayer, a refusal to be defeated.

Now I walk under sunny blue skies
while wildflowers lay wintering
as they grow together in darkness.
Imagine it–

These barren fields will bloom again,
how any act of kindness we give
to each other and ourselves, even this
will fill the whole world with its color.