Winter Poem by Gabrielle Ciarann Roniyah Baer

Funny how the body remembers
what the mind forgets
Winters were gray and rainy,
breezy but clear, only touches of fog,
turning hills and branches green again.
for so long.

But now my spirit remembers
my legs turn back to child times,
my feet crunch across fields of snow,
wrapped deep and
unassailable as a child,
oddly unafraid.

And when the sun climbs
a winter's sky,
or the moon rises full despite the cold,
my heart recalls times past,
when winter stilled the world,
so it could rest.
Stand still,
It still calls within,
Feel the calm, even through the cold,
Fear nothing, the wheel has only
turned once more.

A breathing-space comes here,
when all must rest,
before the rushing life of spring.
Persephone lies with Hades once again,
And Psyche holds Eros close,
But fearlessly now,
They know, always,
what we forget,
as time nudges us towards age,
Life returns, renewed again,
Just as we do, after a sleep.


written in 2002