Not so long ago, the white, shrouded landscape sharpened and faded to gray-dations.  True, a colonial brick structure seems a welcomed contrast, and even, intrusion.  Beside it, slender, child-like branches, reach upward . . .

For what?

Sun, maybe.  Golden treasure.  Seeking a gathering of spring blossom, beckoning Mother, tentatively discovering the return of the robin . . .

When all is blustery and frozen, when light diminishes in short hours, when we hear the howl of the wind like a lone wolf hunting prey in the forest, still, we wait on this landscape of weathered souls.

In, around, through . . .

Until the long winter recedes like the tide, flakes becoming river raised to bank, forging away to that place, unknown, while the fall landscape emerges again for a time.  Remember that time?  Harvests?  Halloween?  Does it seem so long ago?

Sometimes . . .

And then one day, the land bursts with rare green shoots and bright yellow heads emerge from the fertile, wet earth.  Effortless.  Sudden?

Like a birth.

Yet, can we recall the bulbs were near us in the meadow, resting, as we cavorted in snow?

Even now, brushing a nodding bright bloom, recall the summer of sun.   Breeze tousling cheeks, rays warming stiff shoulders, as if it were with us all days . . .

It is, in my best recollection, an ebbing, eternal season, every season . . .

–  Michelle Zimmerman

Note: I have included this poem in the The WordPress Daily Post Daily Prompt:Gray