Modern Romanticism

Winter’s personal fire
from its numbing touch
once left a mark.

Since your departure,
I’ve counted the remaining
flakes of falling snow.

Before springtime
ever arrives,
I wish to remember
the one call
that saved me
from the fall.

I wish to revisit
that internal storm,
tracing your veins
like lightning,
like burning branches
in the overgrowth.

I want to see why
I needed shelter,
before the warmth
starts to steer my
wandering mind
from its need.

There’s an echo
within a sealed cave.
Opening its aperture
will bring back
a deposited memory.

It’s your nurtured,
matured existence
now like fragile pieces
of a burned photograph.