Jan 2020
WINTER AND I
Winter and I live the same lives.
Winter is grey, I am grey. We both
are freezing. Winter blows the snow.
I am the snowman. The ponds of
winter become thick with ice. I too
am ice-laden. Snowdrifts are three-
feet high, and I am buried by them,
even as I sit inside my room. Winter
finds its way inside of me, even as I
don my heaviest sweater. Where is
the blue sky that I love? Behind winter’s
sky, I think. Can I endure the months
ahead? Will my heart ever thaw?
Snow and ice will melt come spring,
but will spring ever come back to me?
Will the fragrance of lilac blossoms
ever again lift me to the whiteness
of the clouds? I can only huddle as
I pray.
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
Winter and I live the same lives.
Winter is grey, I am grey. We both
are freezing. Winter blows the snow.
I am the snowman. The ponds of
winter become thick with ice. I too
am ice-laden. Snowdrifts are three-
feet high, and I am buried by them,
even as I sit inside my room. Winter
finds its way inside of me, even as I
don my heaviest sweater. Where is
the blue sky that I love? Behind winter’s
sky, I think. Can I endure the months
ahead? Will my heart ever thaw?
Snow and ice will melt come spring,
but will spring ever come back to me?
Will the fragrance of lilac blossoms
ever again lift me to the whiteness
of the clouds? I can only huddle as
I pray.
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks has been a poet and human-rights advocate his entire adult life. He recently finished his novel, A CHILD FOR AMARANTH.
