cold

Wendy Kheiry

Keep Warm

There is the cold void of space

Expanding through your heart

Temperatures dropping

Daily

Every slight, every ding, every pain

We numb and withdraw

Our sap dropping from limbs to root

Our leaves fall beautiful

Into piles of decay

How to continue

Why go on

When it hurts

Grief overtaking

And spring is so far away

Don’t stay there in the heart of winter

Rest and repair and rise again

Capture each ray of sunshine

Be soothed by the songs of the birds

Revel in the blue, blue sky

Wrap the grey clouds around you

Sprout

Grow

Fly

The heart of summer is always within you

A blooming meadow

Paradise of butterflies and bumblebees

Keep warm

With the kind word of a friend

Laughter

A good book

Keep warm deep into the restless night

Keep warm kindled sparks in reserve

Until you become the star

Wendy Kheiry

Frostbit

The cold seeped almost to the bone

Fingers and toes

If my heart were made from fingers and toes

I radiate warmth and heat

Even while the hoarfrost grows thicker

Deeper

When you come in from the cold the weight hurts

The toes and the fingers start to hurt

Where they were numb

Dangerous to plunge them into hot water

Warm them up slowly

Trickle love into a frostbit heart

Slowly, so slow, and a little slower

Warm not hot

It will take some time to adjust

They love so much so much so much

And it hurts like too much warmth too fast

It’s needed and it hurts, but you don’t want to say

Because you don’t want them to feel bad

Or go away

How to say that it hurts

It’s not them or their love or the words they say

It’s that the cold has been there so long

Everything numb

And the warmth allows feelings

And the feelings hurt which had been frozen

As they thaw and it melts through tears which

Can’t stop, and won’t stop

But they do stop

People stay and tears stop

It just takes a little time near the fire

Not too close, a little closer the warmer you get

After a while it doesn’t hurt when they love so much

Much is repaired by the hearth

And the frost melts away

In out of the cold

Wendy Kheiry

Maybes 12/19/2020

Do the trees miss me

When I am long gone from the forest

Do the birds remark my absence

When I am shut away from earth and sky

Would the cardinal and raven and the hawk

Remark they have not seen me of late out upon my midday walk

Maybe not

Maybe not

Still it’s not a reason to stay inside

That’s no reason not to don my shoes and coat and go

Walking though the cold is welcome not

The day is short and time is weary of my demands for it to slow

We’ve got the cold, but haven’t got the snow

To coat the world in magic for a while

I’d rather there be warmth, and be there warm

Maybe so

Maybe so

Whatever comes, however shapes the day

The day does try to shape it back, to shout and have a say

Plans are planned to have something there to fall away

Nothing stops the day when it demands

So, I won’t plan a walk to walk today

Should the opportunity arise, I will away

Maybe yes

Maybe yes

I’ll walk, and maybe there will be snow

I’ll walk, and maybe there will come the snow