Had there been no winter’s ghostly gaze,
Nor frosted runes across windowpanes,
Would longing kindle through a silver haze,
Or sorrow haunt the heart that still remains?

If frost had never kissed the trembling leaf,
And snow had never claimed the earth’s regret,
We might have thought we’d stolen time from grief,
And found the sun unmoved when night beset.

If spring arrived without her predecessor’s death,
If resurrection bore no sacred cost,
Could hope exist where sorrow held no breath,
Where gain had never learned the language of loss?

What splendor blooms without the barren rite?
The heart forgets the ache that tempers fire;
In warmth’s unyielding, tyrannous delight,
The soul dissolves in blandness, none the wiser.

For seasons are the poets and the thieves
Who steal our warmth to teach us what is real:
The soul that never fractures, never grieves,
Can never know the architecture of how to feel.

For here’s the cruel jest, in nature’s guise:
Without the winter’s wound, no spring would rise—
We’d lose the loss that dignifies the prize,
And stray bewildered through a paradise of lies.