WINTER IS BETTER FOR LOVE 

The city clings to me –

follows me back

after I remember I can’t live

in the shadows of better men and women.

I retreat to the woods 

and rock walls overgrown,

stones displaced by foraging animal 

or stretching root 

or knocked aside by unbounded fawn

following its more capable kin.

There are none of those today –

only the crunch of thin-layered snow

atop fallen frozen leaves

and the rare squirrel quick to restock

its store for a family secreted away

in warmth and love.

In Spring it comes too easy –

Winter is better for love.

Hedgehogs huddle close,

preferring occasional pin-pricks

to lonesome cold.

This is love not on display

in vibrant greens and blooming fields – 

Winter’s love endures the days;

it always gives but never yields.

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C.K. Farrell earned a Master in Fine Arts in Creative and Professional Writing from Western Connecticut State University and currently teaches at Tompkins Cortland Community College. His work reflects the charge of the poet: to look at old things in new ways and reduce the amount of loneliness in the world. 

Peter Dino Bruno is a writer and visual artist living in Brooklyn, N.Y.. His photographs and collages have been shown in galleries in Vermont and New York City. He recently retired from a career as an English and theater teacher in Vermont.