Winter’s Wake

“Winter dies into the spring, to be born again in the autumn.”
Marche Blumenberg

January’s cold rain
foretells an emerald spring,
wrapped in the Rocky Mountains snow white furs
winter shivers
sensing the vernal equinox
and her own interment
beneath fields of lavender lilacs,
blooming century plants,
and aromatic sage.

In stone pine trees,
mourning doves,
unpaid mourner at winter’s wake,
cry;
their weeping echoes across mountains,
through valleys,
and into deep canyons,
even as at the autumnal equinox
nightingales will celebrate her rebirth.

Line count:18 Form: Free verse