The Snow of My Winter

You are the snow of my winter.

You cover my desolation
in your gentle falling
I awake
and I am august
a truth that grips the poet’s heart
here, where lovers make breathless
eternal promises.

I am a girding
incandescent memory
for this old one or that
the excitement in the gray storm
of firing synapses —
they remember.

In your embrace I am a thing of awe.

I become the laughter of children
in their perfect joy.
In me is the promise of life
and I become the bud, blossom
and green of spring.

© 1996 jon miller whitney