old winter

how old you are
dread Winter

in the deep of white
you keep memories
cold and pale
and withered

I have touched them
as I must
but every time
there has been a price

ever and ever
a price
that claimed from me
something I held
that was
warm

there is a chill
in you
old Winter
that comes from ages
long ago

that comes
from me
away
away
in Springtime

you had knotted your snares
already then

before I knew
the traps of seasons
before I understood
to treasure sunshine
or to hold balm dear

I am coming
towards you
Winter
I am grown old
now
too

though you take
my warm
as though by right
I hold
a kernel
a single memory

of the second Springtime
the rejuvenation

one memory
not to be ceded
into your keeping

it is the one
that will keep me hale

warm my heart

though your dungeon
lay its ice
in white
upon me

~

Poem #443 from a series of poems drawn from the imagination and collected as: a Bachelard reverie.