These winter days
blackbirds stand on empty limbs
against grey skies
in mute wonder at space.
Silence echoes their loneliness
Mist rolls long over woods in snow
locking everything in its own insignificance
freezing sounds in their own eternity.
Like barking dogs
the wind snaps the heels of those unprotected
whose garments are frayed.
illusions can’t mend.
Summer ripples on glass ponds
continue forever.
The glass is frozen
unable to grasp that which comes before it,
frozen in its own blood.
This day is warm.
A force wells up, forgotten,
frees my blood and sends it running
like new spring rivers
raging down from their mountains.
Cracking my sides
I rise up and out of myself
setting my heart to beat
with the heart of the universe
forever.
But winter has time,
is not half done,
so I wait and rest,
renewed;
knowing what I thought was lost is never lost,
but sleeps;
a seed in the husk of its own becoming
and will not rise before its time.
— Robert Rose
