The Winter Coming

Distant and silent
whenever it approaches, still seeming so far,
trees mourn over shedding leaves
as evidence of another summer, another lover
gone.

Cold and biting
in the still wood, the deer bends her head
gracefully to drink from a cold vein in the sleeping earth,
while skies breathe frosty flowers that slowly bury a lover gone.

Shadows of the past dance with remnants of an ancient sun between branches
and the forest howls tiny knives against your fleshy cheeks,
a reminder that you're still alive.

Trees shudder
at this harsh love
moving through you
testing your will,

always entering and leaving with the subtle hope in
knowing beneath their frozen glass
is in letting go and shedding the old,
are the seeds of life, anew.