Winter, Too, Is Never Truly Cruel

Winter, too, is never truly cruel;
Though frost may lace the edges of the boughs
And winds may sing along the barren fields,
It wraps the earth in sleep’s enduring hush,
A watchful keeper of the buried flame.

It speaks in whispers through the drifting flake,
Through quiet nights beneath the moon’s pale veil—
A lullaby for roots that lie below,
Where life begins to stir beneath the quilt
Of snow that hides the pulse of spring to come.

A herald soft of rains that soon will fall,
It clothes the world in crystal, light, and stillness,
Then fades with grace into the arms of time,
Leaving behind the shimmer of its touch
To melt into the dream that starts to wake.

Adorned in light, in song, in breathless hush,
The crack of ice, the carol’s distant note,
The quiet glow of dawn on frozen earth—
These are the flames that warm the longest night,
The fleeting fire beneath the solstice sky.

The voice of thunder, flashes through the storm,
Are but the echoes of its hidden strength—
A blaze of brilliance, passing into calm,
Yet even as it yields to gentler days,
It lingers in the hush it leaves behind—
A silent force, the sculptor of the thaw.

MyKoul