First Winter After John Has Passed

Winter – how she beckons.

She’s in the house now as much as she’s in my body

Sluicing from the kitchen faucet, sharp and brittle

Solidifying into a hard pellet like a doormat buried in snow

I can flick at winter - like a quarter tossed from my thumb

And watch as she lands, skidding like a skipping stone

First as hardened leaves and cracking stems

Next as icy cobwebs stretching across the window pane

And finally, in those gorgeous moments, falling as gentle feathers

Serving as luxurious fur coats to warm our shivering trees

Winter boasts with fanfare, with heavenly plumage

And she can be ever so proud

Demanding to be seen

Collecting in piles

Drifting with the wind across the still streets

Shimmering like silver rivers in a beam cast from the corner street lamp

I don’t see winter as punitive

And I don’t consider her mean

But I do understand that she can be a complex beast

Alternately muddy and pristine

Obstinate and fleeting

Dark for terribly long stretches

In the same instant that she sears us with her brilliant white light

What a season for reflection

And metamorphosis

For penitence and generosity

For bathing and refreshing

For crystalline emergence.