Frozen in time

All winter long I hungered for you

All winter long I hungered for you,
Scents and seeds carried 
On a breeze -- as if wind were 
Created merely to port 
Nature's other ideas.

Browned legs striding out 
In front of me, feet sturdy on
Wily stones, ankles stuffed in 
Secondhand boots and
This golden light soaking into
Everything, encasing me and
Lazy afternoon bees, 
Scummy pond, bowing grass 
In her filigree of dreams. 

I didn't wish the winter away --
You can ask her yourself 
And she'll tell you 
how I stalked the silted sidewalks, 
Sniffing for snow, imagining 
The weak gloom would
Give in to the exertion of
Of a silencing blizzard. 

One wants to be hidden in
The winter months, to put
Away the race and 
To dig in.

But a season is a season
For a reason -- inside
Its walls another life grows
Like cosmos seeds -- buried 
But starting to break. 

Nothing not even death
Is frozen in time -- for time is
The wind, steering life's
Scent on to the next
Umbra, pushing the clouds
Of another spell on through,
Time is a fermenting heart 
Hungering for what other than
That anodyne glow.

—

**For my friend, Ford, whom I love like no other.