Hell, why not another poem! Very slow today at work (thank god!). It's been nuts in here for the last month or so. It would appear that I wrote the following poem in the winter, but I think it is a piece that speaks for every season.

Extremities

Beneath the ice, seeds sleep,
buds await--

Morning

finds me searching for warmth
and some semblance of spring. Flash-
lights line the bedside table,

replace moisturizer and books.
You lie next to me. Steady snores
comfort me as sleet meets pain.

Fear wants to make its claim
in these moments between bitter
cold and desired warmth.

I pull another afghan around my shoulders,
think of my grandmother's hands,
my grandfather's death, pray

in the quiet gathering of ice on limbs.
How frail the hours that support
the expected worry of one more season,
low-laden and fraught with winter's weight.