I always forget how easy it is to fall back into the lap of flowers. Like a soft, huge, cushion on a cold, snowy, blustery winter's afternoon when the blue skies of summer with their endless star filled nights when the windows are flung open wide and the crickets singing their songs are as remote as the hot summer sun who's rays fall softly upon the petals, always the petals, of the flowers I long for. The flowers, their smell, their beauty so fleeting, hardly noticed less sought. Yet-still they are sought, gathered, foraged, shaped, loved, caressed and retrieved from their home and brought lovingly to my table to be enjoyed and cherished and revered their brief and fleeting life- never ever to be forgot, for the next gathering lives within my soul- even on the darkest, snowiest, coldest day of winter... when the wobbly rays of the sun can not melt the frost upon the window pane.

Sunlight glistens on a snow white field, moist breath is captured in frozen air, as smoke swirls from the chimney into the cold December sky. The jeweled tree shimmers, aglitter with light, behind the pane of the frosted glass. The door is open. The scent of evergreen and the flicker of the fire beckon... our memory leads us inside. Home. Always, we come home.

Stars shimmer in a blue ice sky. The moon, ever crescent shaped, hangs suspended above the stark earth as it awaits the sun, which is a hope upon the frozen horizon. The bare branches reach their fingers to the sky, beckoning to the warmers day to come. Our hearts and souls, locked in the embrace of winter's grasp, search for the turning point that will bring the return of warmth, of sun, of life, the point of change, when we can begin to exhale again.

Tomorrow, the rain will come. It will splash against your windowpane. Thunder will sound in the distance and dark, heavy clouds will fill the sky. A cool breeze will wash over your body. The grass will be green and soft and the flowers will stand tall. The hay fields will fill the air with their sweet fragrance. Wild flowers will dance along the roadways and the sky will be a vivid blue. The earth will spring beneath your feet and color will return to the horizon... The birds will splash in puddles, the lakes and rivers will be strong and full-and the sweet smell of life will delight the senses. In the morning there will be dew... Tomorrow, when the rain comes.

Outside my window lays a picture. It is a picture with a view. The branches, bare, the trees not leafed. The grass, so brown, awaiting fate, yet teeming with life, is this view outside my window do I see. The birds they fly. The squirrels they play. And the chickadee looks in my window and happily asks for naught. I can't, though it hurts, know if the trees, they will sprout, or the grass, will it green, or the earth, burst forth in bud. But this, do I know, my window has a view...of life that carries on, of birds that fly, in skies so blue, of squirrels that play in branches bare. Of chickadees, who happily go through life without a care. Be I like the chickadee, not knowing what's to come, but dare do I enjoy the view, without the sprout of bud.