Merril D. Smith

“When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible”
—Maya Angelou, A Brave and Startling Truth

Snow falls, feather-soft
a silent shroud,

but ice is unyielding, strident,
treacherous—

hard, cold, cruel—
it can murder you.
even if you just stand there,
even if you’re trying to help others,

ice can kill heroes.

You could fall through the ice,
and no one would find you,

even if you’re a child
stranded like a polar bear

alone
clinging
to hope.

In hope,
I scatter words of truth and
compassion

breadcrumbs on the snow,

I watch one creature pick them up,
then another,

whispering them, then shouting,
singing

with robin joy
and mockingbird memory

all the words
that we carry inside
with the stardust
of our chaotic, unpredictable universe—

the impossible made possible
with our light,

we melt the ice.

Merril D. Smith is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet. Her second collection, Held Inside the Folds of Time (Jane’s Studio Press), was published in 2025. Her first full-length collection, River Ghosts (Nightingale & Sparrow Press), was Black Bough Poetry’s December 2022 Book of the Month. She writes from southern New Jersey. Find her at Bluesky: @merrildsmith.bsky.social; Instagram: mdsmithnj; Blog: merrildsmith.org.

This poem appears in Uprooted: Poems of Resistance, Witness, and Survival (The Chaos Section Poetry Project, Fall 2026). We’re sharing each poem from the collection individually over the coming weeks. You can read the full book or download the free PDF here.