• Your loss is no more winter to my heart
    than first snows brushed against unfrosted panes.
    It will last no longer than those days that start
    and end with unfilled plates and gnawing pains.
    It is no paler than the saltless streets,
    no colder than the peasant's mittless finger,
    yet I am sure that when the icy sheets
    are pulled away, this cold will not just linger.
    The earth can only take so many winters
    and only as long as there stays hope for birth;
    here, even the seeds are torn to frigid splinters
    and the rivers freeze too dry to melt. The earth
    may wear false greens and masquerade as Spring.
    The thrush may come, but with no song to sing.