Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 February 2010.

Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;
And spring comes green again to trees and grasses
Where petals have been shed like tears
And lonely birds have sung their grief.
…After the war-fires of three months,
One message from home is worth a ton of gold.
…I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin
To hold the hairpins any more.

—A Spring View, Tu Fu (c. 750), trans. Witter Bynner