More Gently Than Frost

Refusing all invitations
You are excluded by no one.

Trusting no one
you are never deceived.

Bright and strong
you are never defeated.

Green thorns grow on bare stems
beneath the spring sun,

As if holding fragile blooms
safe from corruption.

Take my hand let us gather flowers;

we will hold them more gently than frost.

On Winter nights, your heart frozen,

your eyes weeping snowflakes that gather,

 In drifts around an empty bed;

there you may learn
that tears are only water
to make the heart grow.