Winter Breathes Life

Don't know when you danced into the year -
perhaps late October
when your chilled cold winds would
make the leaves on my branch stir and shiver
from the usual damp, dry, suffocating weather.

The peak of December -
I notice you now -
Clear and crystal
like a laced white patterned snowflake on the brown crumbling ground.

Your Winter aura -
mesmerising -
mysterious, exotic, serene, breathtaking
- but heavy - with Death
A dark story,
folded into and inside layers of delicate satin
and kept in an open cupboard -
draws me in for its discovery.

I'll see you every year,
yet with the times changing "time and time again"
I fear the last time I'll see you.
My routine, my routes altered -
going for a walk a little early on Thursdays -
going for a walk a little late on Saturdays,
to witness your sunrises and sunsets.

When I see you -
I wish time would freeze
like icicles on bare trees,
pinch the thin glass of an hour glass in its in-between
so no more of the powdered gold will fall into Lost Time.

I would zoom into the moment
my eyes embracing the hot "eye of heaven"
- lingering -
until I can stare no more.

And then I return to the devastating familiarness
of my own home.
Days pass by
weeks, months and seasons -
I'm at the brink of forgetting you.
But then, in the centre of my own hurricane
suffering from my monsoon and harsh autumn gales
You return -
to bring me Rest and Peace.