A Winter’s Night

The sky has turned a chalky white with muted spiffs of gray.

Tree branches are now heavy strands of dark thread

woven to hold the heavy white weight

that lingers

that bears down

that soon will begin to drip.

The air is filled with strips of icy pellets,

neither rain nor hail nor snow nor sleet;

something else, very cold and stinging

that lingers

that bears down

that has already begun to drip.

An amaryllis demands the eye

to watch it burst into being:

blood red to make you think

how it lingers

and bears down

and hopes you into spring.

The sky is now a shadowed hush of silence.

There will be no starlight on this night,

each of us free to imagine the light

that lingers

that bears down

that lifts us up.

© Jackie Roberts 2/14/2021