heart's winter

Be still in the winter of the heart.
Learn the climate
Learn the rhythm of earth asleep
Learn the earthworms deep, deep under
Learn the sky, in retreat
Learn the sun in chill mourning
and the trees, each alone and naked in glory,
unsure if blood will come back to their roots,
meditating on the leaves that could be
if they survive.
In the winter of your heart, gather your stillness
store it up for that noisy spring to come.
Store up dark dead earth
drink, swallow that helpless sky.
Learn the myriad of white, the hunger of gray
learn it for those too-bright days
which will surely come too-bright and too-brief.
Now all is dim and eternal, an omen of the ether.
Be still now, still in the heart's winter.