Silver and Red

Trudging through snow

In wallowing and restlessness

Northern winds culled-

Cease to blow

Gazed upon the locket and held its silver chain.

“I’ll be damned if red did not flow here today”

Through howling trees coming to silence

And through trudging, and seeking, as if

Beyond circumstance…

Still, rogue stained snows as-

Solemn hymns of an epoch.

Of forgotten once, but forged anew,

Amongst somber shoal -

Warm peaks of his mind----

 

“I’ll be shamed if I did not gaze and hold this chain”

Says the guilty, as he has chains upon the warm.

But, as his truth’s lover, retorts,  

"Verily, if I have peace with these stains

With past summers or spring rains,

Or all the stinging doubt of the winters,

It weighs like a decade of bitter defeats.

But as reason judges, so does the red flow here today,

Contained in heart as forever refilling,

Nourished by the joy.”