Winters Past and Present

Photograph © James Hart

Stippling who pass below
And pillowing the street
Winter's silver streamers flow
In overlays discrete

But now the whiteness tends to bring
Along with icy swells
The deeper and unwelcome sting
Of childhood farewells

Heavy layers used to fall
When family kept its ties:
Window shimmers, wailing squalls
My father's laughing eyes

Lifts to lamplit mountaintops
We stared at the abyss
Through the gaping dark we'd drop
And pierce the frozen mist

Sometimes snow meant borrowed time
And sometimes we'd conspire
It brought the first of many signs
To start a morning fire

Signs that aren't repeated now
As lives revised their way
Seldom winter snows allow
The gift of cozy days

For now the whiteness tends to bring
Along with icy swells
The deeper and unwelcome sting
Of childhood farewells