Layers provide
refuge,
buttoned, zippered,
wrapped.
Months of silence have
settled in,
long nights of
sharp, crystalline snow,
piled thick and heavy.
But I am old,
and you are older.
Time has substance
unlike before.
Crystals lose their edges,
Rounding into droplets,
eased by the warmth of
spring.
Conversation surges and ebbs,
no longer tracing the shoreline,
but lingering in deep water.
It has become a daily occurance,
Sometimes big, intricate flakes,
Infinitely personal,
Other times small, needled,
Wind-driven crystals,
Targeting those who venture
Out thinly prepared.
It seems easy to spiral with
Those feeble and complaining
Souls,
Sinking into drifts of ever deeper winter.
I watch the birds,
Flitting from tree to feeder,
Basking in the mid-winter sun,
Practicing for the exhuberance of
Spring,
Invincible.
Your stealth is admirable,
A sneaky move under the snow,
Behind the scenes.
A long, narrow tunnel shelters
Your changing position,
Your smiling face masking
Selfish intention.
Soon you will come up for
Sun and fresh air,
A large and marked target,
And what you have planned
From the start will no longer
Benefit from hasty and
Selfish camouflage.
I watched you in my dream,
One step removed,
Floating through pieces
Of history all jumbled
And mismatched.
Solutions presented and
Discarded spun deadly
Webs of memories.
Moving through my
Waking moments are
The tendrils and
Wonderings,
Cobwebs of life
As I knew it,
And as I never will.
Wind devils dance across
Waves of snow,
Sculpted by frigid winds,
A gift from the north.
I wonder where you hide
During the moonlit
Darkness.
A brief foray into nosediving
Temperatures takes my breath away.
I watch fervently for a glimpse
Of the life that pulses so
Strongly in the wild,
Wondering.
I miss the woods,
the deep anonymous solitude
bathed in frigid moonlight.
Age withers good intentions
and scatters them among
the infinite crystals
of ice and snow
as life as you know it
trudges forward in circles,
never gaining enough lift
in the cold and heavy
air to spiral into
something
new.
My life is measured in dog years,
marked by memories and smells,
small piles of hair
filling the corners of rooms,
filtering through the sunlight air.
I gather together the rich feel
and smell of warm summers
of fur mired with drying pond,
the exuberance of flying across
the field to dive into the blissful
wetness of mud and weeds.
Though individual in essence,
you blend into the blessing
I call dog,
and keep me warm in the
spaces between you.
It settles in,
Sinking into drifted valleys of snow,
Deepening with the approach of the
Rising sun.
The stillness is imposing,
The face of the sky shuttered,
Waiting.
This is a season of hiding,
A prelude to cacophony and
Rebirth.
Impatience has no momentum,
Lost with falling leaves
And buried in snow.
It seems time should be linear,
A string of days and years
That stretches into infinity.
Instead there are circles,
Hours and days we wish
To relive over and over,
Not just the memory,
But the sound and smell
And feel.
Wishing changes nothing,
But I do it anyway,
Knowing that you will
Understand and
Hope along with me.
