Winter Night

It is midnight and it hovers.

.

The air is thin with it, touched by smoke,

And full of darkness as sharp and clear as glass.

The temperature hangs in the night, palpable,

Hungry for warmth in that familiar, winter way

That claws at the skin and burns in the throat.

.

I can hear you in the forest.

.

The shape of your footprint is warm and obvious

Against the frost coloring the world silver.

It is not quite white, not when the blades of grass

And the still budding flowers stand erect

With their eroding dreams of seeing the first snow.

.

I can taste you in the air.

.

Crackling in the stillness with all the subtle threat

Of the great aurora borealis overhead.

You dance like frost in my veins, crystalise my heart.

I breathe out snowstorms around you.

What I wouldn't give to touch the furnace of summer...

.

Your heart was a magmatic thing.

.

It burned through autumn, caught fire in the trees.

The smoke settled in the river basin,

Played around with the meandering mist of winter.

And the world shifted from hot

To something I have never expected from you.

.

The cold, it hovered.

.

Geometric lines built their cities on dying leaves,

Crawled across the northern fields

Leaving a trail of pale starlight behind them.

And I settled into the feeling,

Wondering where I would meet your warmth.

.

The winter night hovered no more.