The Edge of Winter

The seasons do not end.
They do not merge
or silently despair
of ever ending.

The daylight finished every evening
as we alighted
and made us finish our commute
with stumbling and in cold.

From miles we saw our goals,
the lights of life and gold
held true in ancient houses
where the ghosts forgave us.

And I held hands
(but only I; not she)
while discourse poured,
a literary tumult in the dark;

a rage of ancient English,
a rage at relevance
of old world smut
to her, a modern woman.

And I looked up,
my face lighted
and anticipating
nothing more than saving her

from all imagined,
hidden enemies,
and darkling Gorse
where nothing lay but

cruel Null things of lows,
black flowers in the fog,
evil country things
to break and bend.

And would I live again
between those trees?
To see her fighting
all her demons

to hear those lectures,
riven from the native sectors
of her mind
and lost on me that was.

And what is love
but two alone
in seasons' romance
lost in fog and snow?

We could not live forever;
at fourteen nothing does.
She escaped and vanished,
turned so serious.

And in the winds of autumn
turning slowly with the leaves,
I walk that path
and hear her tales of love,

the sparks of metaphysics,
of the life indefinite,
the stories left by her
for me to live beyond.