The Pattern of Our Years

I’m old enough to believe in the cold,

Old enough that the snow does not surprise me,

But I hear the wonder in their eyes,

Surprise in toes that feel like broken glass.

I pull out sweaters when the calendar declares

The time is near

Because I know this time comes faster every year.

All the mystery has drained away,

Like the bottom of a bath,

Hair-curling dregs going past.

We pretend that we are masters with Climate Control,

But year after year,

Rain means mud, snow means shoveling.

We are puppets of the seasons,

Made to dance to the back of the closet,

Made to dance in boots.

And in the ritual exchanging of flip flops for sweaters,

We are prisoners,

Wrapped in, kept in, held like a beloved in

The patterns of our years.

A Proposal

When kingdoms fail and chaos wins the day,

Though I wear chains of desolate defeat,

And comrades of my youth be marched away

To die and sweat and bow a mean retreat;

When plague shall wipe from earth the sword and shield

And farmers leave the lonely plow to die,

The oxen lowing, kings in unturned field

Insentient ‘neath pale unfeeling sky;

When all the world is shrouded with a night

That poetry itself cannot abide,

An age from which the words have taken flight

Because the poets one and all have died:

            For you my love I still will always sing

            Till close of time the fire and ice will bring.