Breath is heat slipping over tender frost,
life leaning outward to inward as demure
roses pale and pines yet soar as spires;
bright leaves spent so soon are bejeweled.
This light is sparsely cast and laid
upon each day and place like prized
filigree wrought of another world,
or an extra skin for the darkening journey.

This heart flares with a blossoming of soul,
settles in for wintry dreams and musings,
snug inside a sojourner’s still-lithe flesh.
Mind catches up though trailing green, gold.
What stays alive is redesigned in December shadows;
we transform within its secret opalescence,
its sheer, still points like a canopy of safety.