Abiding Winter
How we made it through another winter
is not the question. It’s not even an answer
since one of us was left behind in winter.
In Spring, in buoyancy, you asked a question.
Cups stood their ground between us, tea and coffee.
You wished to be the answer to your question.
If winter comes again and yet another,
a darkling season full of melancholy. The yanking
of my soul back to its gutter, that other
place where questions have no answers,
and answers only placate. It takes rafters
of steadfast faith, or mettle, to seek answers.
Truth is brutal. So much we can’t recover,
years I’ve begged for you to wait for Spring to bloom,
living in despair beside each other, and another
stormy season while we tussle for an answer
that is a coda to the sum of all of life’s bother.
I’ve learned to hold my tongue, to question
nothing. Questions are another sort of winter.
Guest Editor’s Note: The sonics, especially the consonance, create a pleasing effect when we hear this one. In no small part to the final line, this may be the best villanelle we’ll see this year.
Please welcome Guest Editor Earl Gray from March 20-March 24, 2017.
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