The wind moves quiet through the bones of trees,
hollow-limbed and aching for the lost embrace of leaves.
Winter lingers in the spaces left behind,
a hush of frost, a breath suspended.

The earth is brittle beneath my steps,
cracked and waiting, as if longing too...
for something softer, something lost,
something warm enough to wake what sleeps beneath.

Yet here...light spills through the barren reach of sky,
thin as a thread, fragile as a memory,
stretching its golden fingers over frostbitten earth,
brushing against me like a voice I once knew.

It does not burn, nor does it stay,
but in this fleeting ember of warmth, I close my eyes
and remember the way summer once held me,
the way laughter once rang in the air
before the silence of snow settled in its place.

How cruel it is, this tender warmth...
to remind me of what I have lost,
to stir the embers of things long buried,
only to fade before I can gather them close.

Yet still, I lift my face to the pale winter sun,
let it rest upon my skin like a hand once held,
a love once known, a dream not yet forgotten.
It does not stay. It never does.
But for a moment, the cold is gentled,
and in its fragile fire, I remember
what it is to be warm.