I will miss her bracing brisk air
Sharp crystals and soft mounds of snow
A rest from heat and pause in growth
Cold quiet that heightens your aliveness
And insulates the roots of the trees

We have softened ourselves flat
In the warmth of convenience
Except in plastic decorative odes
To ancient seasonality and rhythm
And winter has no place here anymore

Earthbound rituals gave way long ago
Replaced by the relentless disconnect
Enforced by commerce as religion
And winter has no place here anymore

I remember sledding through the woods
Into trees and over boulders and brush
Until we found the path to carry us over
All the way to the winding street below
Freer and happier than any summer day

The preciousness of nature’s cycles
And the wildness of existence have faded
A housing development replaced the forest
Of our seemingly vast childhood kingdom
And winter has no place there anymore

But she will not go quietly into oblivion
The rage of the unheard and discarded
Wells up in nature like the rising tide
Demanding penance before taking leave
Of a world unworthy of her wonders