In stillness I sought what peace had been missed.

I think it was I in the morning frost,
my albicant soul reflected aloud,
that whispered and called me to contemplate.

‘Twas not so much a blanket as they say,
for a blanket is easily lifted.
What the raging winds had brought was a shell,
a bitter coffin, to mark what was lost.

Under the cold lay yesterday's asters,
and these and the hills now painted alike.
The newness was life lamented and broke.

Sad perhaps, but an air of majesty
I felt in the ice above and below,
shrouding the forgotten in fresh wonder.

It soon would fade and the old would emerge,
as a butterfly in the bliss of spring.
The shell would give way, the blanket now split.

In sun I would find that welcome fire,
my love but heightened by the recent freeze.
And I'd dance, and sing, and finally weep,
when color decided to hide again.

But it would come back, for it always does,
with a crack in the white sarcophagus.