JANUARY

Why comes the winter with its bitter winds,

its drifts of snow and ice that run too deep,

as though the Earth the summer’s warmth rescinds

and kills the rose we tried past June to keep?

Why does the gentle sparrow flee the spare

and brittle boughs for warmer southern climes,

yet I remain on pages, white and bare,

until this January greens in rhymes?

For there’s no winter to a weathered heart,

whose beat has blossomed to love’s blush, then lost

its rosy rhythm when love falls apart,

like flowers, petrified by dirty frost.

Amidst the dead of winter, we will thrive

through words that flourish here, our love alive.