Dianna L. ZIMMERMAN

THE INGRESS OF YEARN

Comes winter.
The ground's hardness betrays
the crux of a season's sadness
held tightly in our oversized boots.

We are crunching in an era of arctic
tears unshed, lies untold -
the hoarfrost of a bitter sort
without the possibility of return.

Approaches stillness.
Bleak lapses of time sit in memory
along with terrestrial cases of
would have, should have-

a silent stalker on the mind and
the known intent of winter's ill wind.
We take in cold air, unforced

into desperate lungs - the pain of it like a
nice knife cutting into a snow landscape
topped with a delicate, thin
frosted layer of grief.

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