She is Winter

     by William Hecht

Deep December night and she is spent. She is consumed–like the fields after a greedy harvest.

She slumbers—as does the world. Only her essence is sentient, aware. It is a spell: cast in the light of the great moon, it will break with the first rays of the equinox sun.

Her hair is black. It is a wave of boreal night that flowed through the glass, swept down her  cheek, and spilled on a pale shoulder.  Things made of night are smooth–and softer by far than anything made from day.

She dreams—as does the world–of light and warmth, of aromas and twitching roots, the launch of dancing sprouts: calls to life. If I could dream with her, I would have potent visions of crowding color: blossoms.

New December morning and a clean white fabric shrouds her torso. It sweeps and curves like the drifts outside the pane. Her form is hidden and I must imagine the shapes and secrets of her beneath the covering–as I would imagine from memory the paths and treasures of a May garden.

She stirs with the light of the coming day. Were she to open them, her eyes would diffuse light, like the frost crystals on the window that scatter and prism the morning sun.

Her lips are pursed and still. Were she to part them and speak, I would hear fifes capriccio as birdsong, harp notes as fresh drops on petals, and chimes as springwater over stones: words only remind us.

She stirs, but does not waken. She needs–we need–her rest and vivid dreams.

She is a wonder.

She is a force and a season; she is Winter:

To touch her would be sin. To rouse her would unmake the world.

[I was with friends at a local sports bar and the waitress was a congenial young mother and wife, hustling to help pay the bills. She had dark hair and she was probably only distantly aware that she had natural beauty as well. Someone asked her name and we learned it was one of the seasons. She seemed to apologize for her name and I thought that to be a terrible wrong. I wrote this with the very romantic notion that she might read it and from that day on announce her name like a queen, with quiet force. I only know that she enjoyed the piece and that her mother liked it, too.]