Winter Of Love

Winter of Love

Am I not blameless; unrelenting?
For my fern-frond icicles in shards
which blossoming, bloom unbidden
chapped and aching hands, kept hidden
the cold-as-concrete graveyard frost
the warmth of summer memories, lost?

Forgive me, for the deathlike shroud
devoid of growth, the characterless
white expanse of bleak emptiness,
polished downward paths in readiness
to trip, subsume, and ultimately gorge
upon the beaten fire-warmed forge.

Such power in this inevitable dearth
of warmth, and light, and softness.
The blanketing and silencing I bring,
no bird will dare to rouse; to sing,
lowered heads against the driven rain,
(the evening lowered, also, once again).

Do not doubt the depth of meaning
which my deathlike season will bestow-
Just as eyes needs darkness to see light,
to defy gravity; lift wings aloft in flight,
so summer craves her opposite in me,
she needs my desolation, to be free.