Comes winter.
        The ground's hardness betrays
        the crux of a season's sadness
        held tightly in our oversized boots.

        We are crunching in an era of arctic
        tears unshed, lies untold -
        the hoarfrost of a bitter sort
        without the possibility of return.

        Approaches stillness.
        Bleak lapses of time sit in memory
        along with terrestrial cases of
        would have, should have-

        a silent stalker on the mind and
        the known intent of winter's ill wind.
        We take in cold air, unforced

        into desperate lungs - the pain of it like a
        nice knife cutting into a snow landscape
        topped with a delicate, thin
        frosted layer of grief.

Copyright © Dianna L. Zimmerman, 2001.  All Rights Reserved.