Winter Journey

I came in through the snow, my footsteps quickly fading.
I saw, on my way, that old tree leaning, dusted,
paling, and our initials carved were covered only
barely.
I brushed aside the white so you'd remember.
I listened for the solo note of frost finch floating
                            so I could follow.
                                 I found the door with message
                                              thawing in the dawn
but made it out.  I waited among the elms
         and all of nival ilk.  I waited long
         and worried you were lost.
I should not have left.  I circled the vast
                      and colorless expanse, returned
                      and knocked to no response.  I, then,
with one finger, traced words into the sleek freeze
        on window and left again,
                                      the cold gnathic aching blowing
                                                        as if predicting death.
I could feel your absence.  I let my heart beat widowed,
just to know it.  I turned against
       the wind,
                its blast all that broke the terrifying muteness
                                             of the land.
I needed joy.
I needed you.
I stopped and stood alone
in this somber
        silence
and watched the eerie
powder snow gently take out canvas.
I worried you'd forgotten where we were to meet,
   where I met you last, four seasons past.
I planned calendar year around
                                            return.
I memorized your face, this place, but not your meaning.
I held the heat and lied.  I met you in mess of romance.
I observed your wounds with my hands.  I placed yours
                           where mine were matching.
I came back in winter,
came in pitch black night in bleak of chill,
needing fire.
I will kiss you alive when I find you.
I have arrived.

       

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