Winter

‘The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone’
                                             -Goethe
 
1
 
The crisp top of each wave  
knows Winter as it breaches the wind.
The birds shorten their bodies to it,
ruffling in the breeze where they stand
and the low Sun knows it too;
it sinks a glowing amber disk  
surrounded by grey sky.
The land is patched in whitest snow
peppered in browned and grey foliage.
 
2
 
How do I know Winter?  
She comes to me at night
in light too dim to see.
I only feel her chanting, telling me
she exists and I cannot escape her.
I only feel her against the tops of my
bare hands, which redden to her touch.
I only know the emptiness that is her truth;
that death is the lives she takes,
that she guarantees she will purify us somehow,
all of us that none will escape.
 
3  
 
I hear the Winter birds, the lonely,
sparse chirps breaking her silence as if
they can outlast her, with every breath
I feel crisp and sullen truths befall me,
crisp as snowflakes and every bit
as unique.  
We are all patterned this way.
We will all die in our own way
only after living in the one pattern
we fashion to one day die in.
 
4
 
The bird dies feathered  
after a lifetime of growing feathers.
I will die a poet after a
lifetime of writing poetry.
My words are breaching  
some windy surface, they are
enduring winter, I am enduring.
And God is speaking, His voice
louder in Winter as my voice is
louder when Winter is my  
only companion.
 
            .....
 
260 words, 144 unique