Fear of Winter

I will tell you this:
the fear of winter is real,
it’s cold that left you
almost dead,
each cold season more frightening
than the last,
leaving you

afraid.

Afraid that spring is a lie,
a cruel tease,
that waves it’s color and warmth in front of you,
brings your blood to beautiful boil,
before it cuts the flowers,
and throws them on a pyre
as part of your soul dies with them.

Winter again.

But like a fool,
you believe in love,
in passion,
in tales of love that are not tales,
but history.
You believe in life’s spring
in the midst of the killing cold
like a madman
or a priest,
or something more hungry
than you dare admit.

About this poem

When something ends, be it a relationship, a death, the end of a job, the loss of a friendship…. whatever it may be, there is fear in beginning again. In taking the chance. In even opening yourself to the possibility.

I have no advice. I doubt I am the best at this. I try. Not because I am not afraid. But simply because I don’t want to live empty and cold. I am even more afraid of that.

The picture was taken in the front yard of my old house in Virginia, many years ago.

Tom