When Winter Comes Poem by Thomas Hooker

When winter comes

Youth has come to bloom,
although some spring flowers
are slow to show, needing time
to appreciate the storms of pleasing
rain that falls into each life,
their drops wet with tidings,
endless scruples received,
to please or not to please...

Rising everyday,
one foot in front of
the other, feeling loss,
transparent in the words
we step into the moment
as it rolls past us. The sun
moves beyond the dunes
setting the sea on fire.

Stone tired, quiet bones,
heavy from kissing earth,
transferred to an afterlife,
the bardo long and deep
approaches a vast and virgin
snow, covering winter's paradise.