Winter Window Pain

To chronicle a life through a 2 ft by 3 ft west-facing, window is about as far as I can go at the moment.

Individual snowflakes fall as a soft, gray melody. Three prisms hang in attempt to transpose whatever light is given, but today, only hints of the mystical messages glisten through the pane.

The white pine, stalwart and defiant, a reminder that we are not passive, not without choice. Is there a courage missing in me? All I know is that is that I don't know how to hold it all, my love. To say I have everything I need is fair. But is it true?

A slanting roof grows more white over the hours. When a rotten branch breaks off, it hits the snowy shingles and rolls onto the eaves. No birds but empty nests. No squirrels perched atop the apex snacking on acorns or corncobs.

I've never made love in the snow but the thought crosses my mind more than occasionally. I remember in middle school being at friend's house whose parents were loose with restrictions. There would be many of us hanging out without watchful eyes in the dark winterscape. We all played chase-me games in knee-deep snow and the boys who liked certain girls would tackle them and the girls would squeal in delight. They were chosen. I remember throwing snowballs and suddenly looking over to find friends making out, flat backed on the snow. I would walk away and lean up against a tree, counting stars as a way of trying to find my place both in body and cosmos.

Or maybe I was just trying not to cry.

Hints and lightening bolts suggest that there is something bigger than all of this at play.

But I'll be damned if I don't wish for the icy heat of falling into snow under the promise of a kiss.