THERE SHALL COME FORTH A SHOOT I am waiting for a green shoot to come out of my stump some morning in this unseasonable springtime-- December's leaf and blossom, winter's bird. Joy waits with me and I can feel its seepage into my day and night. My bones sing and I hear an unknown music from that one place where, by old reverence stirred, the vowels drain from a word. I think of the marvelous flower that is to come and how the light will hover over it. Now and again though is the message blurred by brief uncertainties: I fear that my rude excess of watching the green may be deterred or that I have miscalculated seasons or given far too personal a meaning to glorious promises Isaiah heard. Yet who am I to minimize the worth of what a stump is likely to bring forth? Jessica Powers, OCD