Poems in Progress: Winter: A Measure of Things

They say that coldness isn’t a thing–just
An absence of energy–but winter
Seems a thing, and it makes me think absence
Is more tangible than we imagine.
The lack of light and motion leaves one listless,
Hunkered down, in between hibernation
And emptiness, but still feeling the lack
So that that emotion becomes the thing.

The snow even seems to stand still as it falls.
The snow is real. On the ground a layer
Forms, inches, proving that the seeming void
Does not hold each flake in constant stillness.
Then it will start to melt, as it always does,
And the temperature will again rise.