What Shape is This?

Spring will come; knowing this
grows hope in winter,
A grass under these thin drifts.

Always spring has come
with Her solace, Her winged sky
her chick-a-dee in the willow.

But comes a Spring with famine
gathered in the gray skirts
of this thin snow–

Comes round at last, Her dark birds
gyring a desert wind
empty of sparrow.

She comes, Her pitiless sun,
and a vex of smothering air,
Our great gift to Her.