It has been a long winter.
The dried and dead hide in our burrows
All iced over with the frosty fingers
Scratching thoroughly

Through and between us.

Now winter is dying.
Our long, cold bones are thawing,
And the ice that ossified us
Washes by us into the gnawing grave

Taking our strength with it.

I have intended to live open-handed
My relaxed spine saluting heaven
And bowing low to no man.

Clutching no sorrow, no regret, no horror
Longer than a snowflake on an extended palm:
A thing I shan’t own- a thing to borrow.

Time is haggard, a poor braggart
Incurring debts he cannot cover,
Ever gambling as he staggers on.

The world is in arrears and cannot repay
Hope for fear, love for hate, or youth for the years
It has squandered away.

The depth in years of these sorrows
Brim up behind my eyes
But they will not spill in quantities
To cleanse what I despise.

I wonder how numerous the lies
Hiding under wet stones
Along the path of our timeline
We walked together; we walk alone.

In what else I could not condone,
Could you not refrain?
And when these stones are overturned
What else can still remain?

How I yearn for lightness,
The unflinching faith
That lifts the unblemished face
To smile at the fists of time.

I recall laughter
Bubbling from deep soul,
Nothing to dampen, nor console
Boundless joy.

My days got old.
My thoughts, so heavy,
Watch children skip steady
On feet of hope and wonder.

I am atrophied
Or else I would sing,
Dance, lose everything
To skip in lightness again.

Suspended on the rock face,
Forever dripping to the ground
Waterfalls cascaded in static pace
Lingering on soundless
While the men behind their barbecues
Pink fingers protruding from crisp gloves,
Knock snow from their white, tented roofs
In the smoke flailing and floating above
And down below sits the drink
Whitecaps turned to icecaps
On the rocks, on the brink
Of one immense nightcap.
Something old, something new,
And the rest caught betwixt
Frozen still, and frozen through
Forever fixed

Inside a motionless, wintry mix.

How I’ve mitigated these great fears
Howling at my threshold
Unnoticed and ignored the years
Before this foothold.

Now the wind has torn the shutters.
I search the storm in vain
Through littered banks and gutters
For any piece that may remain.

Creeping cold that bites at me,
Distrust at every turn,
No sanctuary inside of me
No rightful place to discern.

I search for splintered timber,
But I’ve wandered farther still,
Than I could return, or remember;
My path rolls on downhill.

My little cabin I’ve indwelled
Reduced to burning wood,
And all once standing, now is felled,
And all maligns the Good.

Now I yearn for quiet snow
To frost this filthy earth;
To change the things I think I know,
To give unto hope rebirth.

How little consideration
I ever gave the wind
When I thought my habitation
Protected me from sin.

Another night of endless pain
Pulling me from the deep
Piercing jabs of mortality
Strangulating my sleep
Reminding me, reminding me
This life, we cannot keep.

Another night of endless pain
Forever on the brink
Experienced, I tread the wave,
Exhausted, now I sink
Under these churning, tempest tides
My body is forced to drink.