100 Poems For The Soul

Winternights

  Oh, but it looks
So dark and lonely out
A winter night of driving wind and fine stinging snow
Heavy breath hissing around sharp corners of houses
I cannot imagine the sting of windchill
Or the way the ice forms on the edge of my hood from breathing
Until I stand there and taste the desolation for myself.

No moon rises
Tonight, the clouds and blowing snow make
A milky sky reflecting what light dies weakly from the receding sun
And when you stand in dark snow under darkening heavens
It grows harder to tell
Where celeste ends and terra begins
Drifts are driven mercilessly up against your feet, be they
Of powder or clouds.

And it is so
Dark and lonesome, a
Night fit only for wild things and bitterness
All traces of warmth have found a niche to hole up in
Or be swept away
The Furies themselves stalk the openness, mocking
And killing the tiny flame I tried to shelter against myself
This storm breaks across the land with holy wrath, never have I known
Something so pure as to be biting.
I shall have to be my own warmth now.