Deep Winter



White sky blue earth

a road of wind hard as stone between them

the sun swings his walking stick as he strolls
across the boulevards of February

a small bird wings to a rain gutter
sleeved in snow
or perhaps it was only a mirage

a child sits at a window
making faces at an impending storm
it does not believe in blizzards

but it loves them

you hold my love like a globe of ice
where a soul once would have been

no the winter sovereign in your mind
will never become my final hope for spring

____

Christopher Bernard is an award-winning poet, novelist and essayist. His most recent books are the first two stories in the series “Otherwise,” for middle-grade readers: If You Ride A Crooked Trolley . . .  and The Judgment Of Biestia.