We arrived in a whispery
winter
and I remember saying,
“This isn’t
     so bad,”
          as the snow danced down.
         Bundling the babes
                in
                 new coats
                           and
snapping photos
              of their delight
at catching flakes on tongues, their glee contagious.

And then,
      though the
seasons
came and went,
I fast
  found,
for me,
an interminable,
    inescapable, exhaustless
frost.

The winter of our discontent
lasted five weary
                    years,
or maybe, the discontent
           belonged to only
me,
I, blue, like the white, in spite of
                                    or because of
the sun, the brightest star-
that
tease.

I created two snow angels
in that promising white
     and they melted me for a while.
                                           I watched four children
                                                 then and there
                                                 take with ease
                                                 the
falling,
freezing,
slushing,
sweating.
      And I heated cocoa,
weathered blizzards,
      travelled roads of ice,
                drew warm baths
                          and soaked their illumination
when skies
        spanned
gray for days.
  And tried.
         Tried to
glean joy
                or at least, peace
by their example.
    They forgave the climate
but my heart was freezing in my chest.

I returned to winter
            during summer
to see my mother
but
   though bare of bite
    the land still scant
of anything I would
                want.

I sat alone
with no one,
knowing why
        I left.

Loneliness is worse than hell
         so, home now, in (some
        say)
unbearable torridity,
my heart glows
       at last
in good company.

Submitting at Bluebell Books and Tuesday Tryouts