Gray Winter

Can you still see the beauty in it?

After all that has happened,
and the time that has passed,
month after month of cold
and snow
piled so high,
muscles aching from moving
shovel after shovel
from one place to another,
socks and gloves
soaked through,
skin red from the bite
of the frigid air,
can you still see the beauty in it?

The soft and fragile snow
falling,
floating from gray winter skies
covering the old
with the new,
a fresh layer
that will sparkle in the morning sun.

Just a few weeks more
until all of this
will be nothing more
than a memory,
shovels and ice scrapers
packed away,
gloves and scarves
tucked into the corner
of our closets,
as the snow steps aside
for the gentle spring
and we will know
that we have survived
another winter.

I look out the window
at the falling snow
a thing of beauty,
still,
and try not to think of spring
so close
and yet so far away.

© Michele Markley 2011