My Fading Winter-Eric Blauer (poem, photo is LeeElla's)
Endings are better than beginnings.-Ecclesiastes 7:8

Slipping away, like covers being pulled back,
a queen's quilt, a blanket of cotton, had left,
leaving me only a pauper's raiment.

The beauty of your hiding, your merciful painting, was really witchery;
Evidenced by the emerging, crippled earth that lay frozen underneath your weight.
Such violence you had hidden with your cool and gentle winterhood.

You deceived me, falling from the heavens like sugar.
A deceptive crowning, enthroned for less time than my heart dreamed.
Your coming glittered like a thousand stars descending from angel's eyes.
Showering me with transformation and redemption, you blessed me with, forgetfulness.

My feet never touched the ground, you lifted me, carried me
And then you slowly lowered me to a crippled earth.
Like a child abandoned by its mother, you disappeared in my artic euphoria.

Where did you run too, numbing lover?
Whose kisses freeze time and in whose wake lay a million mirrors.
Everywhere you were, I saw me in your reflection.
I was the face on your emerging creation.

Miracles you brought me.
Opening paths across waters that had forbid my passing.
With the advancing power of your whispered breath...I walked on water.

I stood weeping over your seasonal abduction, gazing longingly into the past.
The ground under my feet is moving.
The cool wind is warming.
The sun has moved and is emerging more and more with a prideful accent.
Creation is dressing different and the mood is frightening.
What evil comes?
What death awaits me, as I am assaulted by this awakened activity?
What spell is being cast that has broken our waiting, our sweet slumbering.

I miss you my fading winter...all must be lost by your leaving.
All will be changed, again