Shall I contrast you with a winter’s night,
between blackened-sky and white-laden ground?
You are e’en clearer; by more stars alight.
Too cold and rending can winter be found:
sometimes so harsh it cannot renew life
and oft as bleak as a dry summer’s scorched.
In place of optimism, merely strife;
no flourishing, only survival’s forced.
But you? You reinvigorate life, all,
reflect the cold fire o’the winter’s sun,
bring not death and end but nurture spring, call
the future forth; art for the Earth wholesome.
So long as one can love and hope and think,
so long shall I converse with you in ink.
Image credit (screenshot) – Ben Vegel
william altoft 