Version 2: Structure set to a 2-line introduction, followed by 5-line verses, expanding some concepts. Each verse ends in “midwinter”. Tie verses together with an internal rhyme between the last line of a verse and the first line of the next (noted in italics and bold.)
There is no warmth.
The heart runs downhill to midwinter.
Unfinished coffee left still outside overnight.
Living is acrid, cold, something to be
Flushed away in the morning,
A task left uncompleted when we had time,
An unwritten tale of midwinter.
We leave a trail of cups behind us as we move,
Things that might have been done,
Words that should have been said,
Love not finally told,
Hearts banked against midwinter.
All our springs flanked by forward planning,
Dreaming times, wishing and hoping.
Where will we go? What shall we become?
Now I’m not a child, now I’m not a teen,
Flowers have overgrown midwinter.
Summers overblown
With business and busyness and doing
For just the sake of doing.
Jobs and children and parties,
Celebrating Christmas in midwinter.
Autumn waiting, holding on to memories,
Filing away our photos,
Cataloguing our books instead of reading them,
Holding back for just the right moment,
Running away blind, anticipating midwinter.
Tears are easy to find, they come
When you are not looking.
Friends of half a lifetime,
Half a century or only half a decade,
Appear and vanish, still, in midwinter.
Meals to fill the freezer, words to fill embarrassed silence
My rabbit died suddenly; God needed another angel.
There’s a new star in the sky tonight.
A trusted few who just sit in silence,
Being present while holding out midwinter.
Tears are easy to find, spent when not expected.
They don’t know what words to say, because
Nothing is right to say,
Nothing is real except the grief.
Nothing to fear, but midwinter
Why don’t the tears come,
To shield us when we need them?
When they do,
They freeze our hearts,
Running down to midwinter.
Empty Chairs 