Winter

As fall marches into winter, I have no choice but to follow.

It grips me at the wrist and drags me to where the Earth is cold.

Fangs of icicles are left, signs of wolves on the wind’s howl.

I weep, reluctant to carry on, “Winter is death!”

Further I am driven into the blizzard.

Dullness replaces the sun; frost kills the breath.

Even my blood is fixed into shards of cutting ice

The fire in my chest won’t survive.

Winter will take me with frozen tears, into the night.

It plots to bury us all with depression in snow.

The reflection in the ice shows only my flaws

Like a mirror, the devils will cripple my soul.

I am in a desert, surrounded by cold salt and bone.

Nothing lives. “Winter is death.”

Yet the longer I tread, something else I am shown.

It is opal, not ivory, that forms the ice,

The glistening silver on the trees.

Winter hid something beautiful, under its disguise.

The trees are not dead, nor am I.

Winter is not death but rest.

There is a calm that surrounds the still skies.

Is wind not of the Spirit? It is peace and silence.

Winter is not death but rest.