First Snow

________________

Sweet winter,
who told you
to rise again,

wearing the snow
as your festal robe?

You stole the show
much to spring’s chagrin,

you who swallow
the sun
only to cough up
stones.


--121809--

Winter's Shadow

____________________

Sweet winter,
Who told you
To curl up and die
Three months early,
Wearing your autumn
Clothes, pretending
No one notices?

Looks like you squabbled
With the sun and came
Up limping.

The world reveled when
You went on holiday
And hopes you will
Forget to return,
Forget to remind
Us we are living.

We now take the
Light for granted.
For we never knew
The clouds.
Never danced
In December rain

Like children.
Never made pools
At the kitchen door
While the liquid
Cold kissed our
Skin until fire
Received it.


--121509--

Fourth Man Walking

________________________

When will the vessel
Burst forth from the blaze
In a translucent,
Resplendent glaze?

How long will the devil
Dance on a dead man’s grave?
I look to the skies, but
Alas! Only rain.

Yet, God is not dead
As Nietzsche has said,

But the fourth man*
Walking in the
Midst of my flame.


* "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods," said the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar as he described the being in the blazing furnace with the three Hebrew youths whom he had seemingly executed (Dan. 3:25, NIV).

--121309--