
There is no understanding
how winter comes
for it comes in too many ways
at too many times
often when it shouldn’t
starting at the edges
creeping to the core
snatching away all the covers
driving out the flames
or
slowly, softly
almost tenderly
like a gentle, timid lover
will winter drift into days
as autumn delicately falls
little dip by little dip into winter’s icy arms
then a frozen world is made.
At times winter rides
with sword drawn
into spring
after life has begun
to wreck havoc on all things
green and growing,
make still all hearts feeling the flow of life begin,
at those times, winter rides
until sweated out
in the course of time.
Yet winter may freeze us solid
in the midsts of summer’s heatwaves
as we stand over gaping mouths of graves.
While some breathing in the hope of spring
as others live in winter’s black ice
suffering the bite of hunger and need
winter’s winter grows larger still
beyond Arctic, beyond talk of tundra,
or talk of some kind of permafrost—
but something too many know.
we will not end in fire
nor will we end in ice
in the end,
it will be the lukewarm breeze
of indifference,
the one to do us in.