It’s finally snowing again Upstate,

After five winters of rain, sleet and not much more,

Besides complaints mixed with warnings from the old heads,

“You don’t know a real winter yet – just wait.”

Even in the fake winters that froze my Texas toes,

I crawled at first, with His patient and loving strides,

Which led a self-crippled man like me eventually to

Dancing with Him in our imagined snows.

But now the real snow has fallen across His temple,

Which brings the distinct joy of rediscovering the world,

Frozen in place and time, through His eyes,

Perfectly unpainted pillows of pure potential.

With my first step into the unblemished dunes,

I wondered what would He do?

Smirking, He advises a two-footed jump:

So it goes – the Darwinian chaos resumes!

In the private clearing behind the parking lot,

I spot three light-spotted deer with snow-dipped tails.

Their eyes locked with mine for a long-lingering moment,

Until distant horn honking sent them out to trot.

In that awkward moment of cervine reflection,

We all wriggled out of the confines of the present moment,

Where I saw Him alongside me, in my history and future,

Proudly adorning our yet-to-be-completed memory collection.

It’s getting colder and I’m getting older,

Walking is taking its compacting toll ,

Yet we walk, shorter and quicker, but we walk;

Memories are only crafted by the gaze of a beholder.

Wherever I can hold Him close is a place to call home;

We walk to spread the kernels of our memories far and wide.

So that when the wind whispers through the canopy,

I can hear His reminder: you’ll never walk alone.