Waking from Winter by Chad Lahr (Imitation #1)

Waking from Winter; where I lost myself

Feeling cold from betrayal, frostbite wears off

Needles in my lips make it hard to speak,

I fell so many times this last season

But being back there is not what I need

Putting pen to paper trying to recall

What made me want to stay back in the cold

Turns my ink to ice and I cannot think,

I did not write although the years passed by

But maybe you were not what I needed

The Winter Solstice ends and I see day

It is blinding but I want to step out

I think I see my former self but no,

Finally I begin to thaw; remembering

Putting fresh footprints in the melting snow

I had heard of ones who woke up then lived

Though I did not believe it for myself

For I thought winter would last forever,

Over and over, some freeze and thaw again

There is more than the changing of seasons

Hating the inevitable rising

Not me, the star above; for I felt weak

But on my feet now I feel like trying,

Opening the door to “old and distant”

Back to where I once was, one door before

It is not far, step back to what you knew

The chords of a song will hit the right strings

Although it feels like night will last all year,

Just believe somehow winter ends for you

Even if it endures until late spring.

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Late Spring - W.S. Merwin

Coming into the high room again after years

after oceans and shadows of hills and the sounds of lies

after losses and feet on stairs

after looking and mistakes and forgetting

turning there thinking to find

no one except those I knew

finally I saw you

sitting in white

already waiting

you of whom I had heard

with my own ears since the beginning

for whom more than once

I had opened the door

believing you were not far