Spring has come

Finally, the season is turning,
first willow leaves facing the black moon –
winter will bite nomore for some time.

I lived
a half life,
critical,
always on the edges of time, though I never knew,

until I happened upon them,
the children that never were.

They are now playing in the sun,
forgetting nights freezing the waters,
solid white under bitter starlit snow.

I step into their circle
and join the song and dance,
although I do not yet know the rules.

The children speak their own language
of games, dreams, a different time
that is as real as my own
that I wove around me, a spell, a coat –

cloak and dagger in the dark
scheming against myself
(a word to the wise).

Let me live my life with these children,
lest I forget winter’s words,
I will raise them as my own leaves
in spring.

Winter taught me
it does not do
to hermit away my days.