Random Acts of Poetry

Solstice

Winter calls you back like a long-lost pearl.
The sky unfreezes at your gaze. Old stars blink out
as you rise above these ringing hills.

We can exhale at last, our faces tilting like pious flowers
at an outdoor revival. Your forgiveness
defies cold logic. Our mouths gape; we're stupid fish.

I don't deserve to live,
any more than a scabrous lizard deserves to bask on a rock
in the palm of the desert.

Ultra-violet
burnt me one summer; I could only stagger, red and tight.
I learned to fear you that year.

But the paltry days twist every misgiving inside out.
I wear layers of woolens,
my breath steams our cold panes, I shiver in the dark.

Today this spinning planet bows to sanity.
Ice will crack and slide
from the roof. Each new year, a gift.
---

My ode to spring, from a few years ago.