Yet again approaches that time of year when the quiet meets the cold They'll shake hands and sit down and sip on dejection reaped from the seeds Sown by people like me, I follow, too closely, my own lead They'll see to it that rivers freeze just like our daily routines Now, forced from living to surviving, we've never been so awake Filled with smoke from the stacks of a city buried in haste Concerned with ice sheeting the ways to where we need to be I'll curse them up and down, pacing in refuge I built in the bosom of the warmth But even she, too, shook her head with the rhythm of my doom Though I never see her go, I know just when she leaves I'm kicking through her trail, grinding bitter teeth Chewing over how and why such slain brown stems from yellow; from green Though I never see her go, I know just when she leaves Any hint of assurance these stale days could bring Passes by a hopeless, languid head too stubborn to lift and see To see people like me, who follow too closely their own lead As she returns, again, this thought leaks from my thawing head That her time away was rather brisk, more so than the previous And now she's found homes in climates she's never been The icicles that nailed my coffin of a bed melted long before I noticed I was free to watch the plants bud from the dead Oh, the parts of life we miss when we're self-condemned
