Twisting, turning.
Frazzled twirling.
Snowflakes glistening.
Snowmen sitting.
Snowballs rolled, ready for fire.
Hot cocoa cups filled ready for hire.

Kids who've been touched by the snowflakes,
Twisting, turning.
And frazzled twirling.

I've been finding myself more
in the arms of uncertainty and nostalgia lately.
Its warmth cascades down my back
like hair made of gold and silk,
draping its familiarity over me
in the form of weary exhaustion.

And yet, when I get too close,
it holds me painfully tighter;
or pushes me away.
Forcing me to feel the dreary shiver
of winter all over again.

Perhaps this affinity surmised
was nothing more
than a suffocating disguise;
its hands holding mine
as if they were akin
to the bequeathed stars above.

I intend to abandon its presence,
as it did to mine;
but then I find it knocking
on my door once more.
And what else shall I do,
than let it in?

I wonder—
do the trees feel empty in winter,
like abandoned cathedrals with hollowed arches,
their prayers carried off by wind?
Do they mourn the once-gold choir of leaves,
or do they wait—
hands lifted in quiet faith,
hope braided into their roots
like a forgotten hymn?

Does the moon know she is not always whole?
That we love her in pieces—
when she is a shard of silver,
a lost earring in the sky.
Does she ache, too,
a lantern adrift in a sea of indifference,
admired but never held?

There is beauty, I think,
in what is missing—
in the pause before bloom,
in the ache of becoming.
The tree, the moon—
they teach us how to stay
even when we are not full.

Maybe they know.
Maybe they don’t.
But still—they remain.
And maybe that is enough.

Gliding my finger over the cracked kitchen tile
Kettle, king of limescale
Waiting and forgetting
One foot in-front of the other
Travel like a skipping rock
The back of my neck burning
Singeing hairs of fever
Fluttering spine cremating
ashes spilling out of my ears.
It’s a citrus sun on a winter day
Frosted fence melting away in an animated motion,
Like butter over a pan
Bubbles on a thorn bush.

Spring comes
And I find myself fond of fall.
Summer dawns
And I admire more winter.
Fall arrives
And I cherish spring newly.
Winter blossoms
And I appreciate summer more clearly.

it's easy to say time heals all wounds,
when every barren branch blooms again in spring,
when every new chick is taken under a safe wing.

but time is yet to wake me from my eternal winter sleep.

i still lay, unmoving, in my barren keep.

even bears leave me behind,
a permanent fixture in their den,
"maybe time will wake him next spring,"
they say, now and then.

the forest whispers above my head,
calling to the last absentee,
but i am no tree,
and spring does not speak to me.

it’s easy to miss the juncos’ slow, sudden departure in spring;
messengers from colder warming worlds

they arrive a dulling autumn:
peppering notations of life in a landscape encased,
each deep dark demitasse
brewed on increasingly tardy dawns
painting a night sky inverted

standing ankle deep in first snows
searching for leftover springs beneath the detritus

but then they finally emerge with the warblers,
orioles, robins, and buntings

and pointillism fades beneath impressionist palettes
that flash over treetops and underbrush

but the last juncos linger:
quiet familiar trills outside my window each morning
disrupting stillness till it disappears