Winter Rose

I lay here in the stillness of night Like last night, the night before Alone with no one to hear my voice Echoing in the silence against these walls That slowly close in each night, tonight, every night I watch these winds outside my window Brushing the cold snow across the valleys between trees And I cannot help myself from wondering If the cold chill scratches at your window Whispering in shivers across your shoulders of our pain Does it echo my love instead? Does it dream of you like I do? Does it hold our love like a rose? Does it breathe across your neck? Like I do, have done, will do again I watch the languid snows falling to the ground Down through the canopy of remembered leaves A many folded memory they cup fast within Of you, of me when in these arms you bathed Inside the rhythms of our hearts beating like one I shiver within the memory of your body next to mine Of the way you fit beside me as we two slept to dream Until dawn broke with pastel shadows across our bed To fall upon you the Rose of lush and vibrant life In each moment cast of whispering light from dawning day I remember watching you in those moments As if it were this morning, yesterday, the day before And this memory fills the bed that yawns beside me Of your waking eyes and smile beneath the first ray of light When you looked so fragile with a foreshadow of strength I see you my love everywhere these eyes do fall In the roses of winter only these eyes can see I see you smiling in the falling snow bathed in moonlight In the wind billowing across the twilight earth I remember you in every shiver to touch my shoulders Each an echo of your love Each a dream touching my skin Holding your soul as if it were a rose in bloom For this heart still singing of your embrace And I do, every night, each night, this night I think of you And of the day, the morning when . . . My Winter Rose I see you smiling