Again, This Winter November can be one of those months when everything just falls apart. I do that sometimes. One night, I wrote this instead of doing my homework; I was that miserable. And I curled my fingers into claws The better to rip you with, my dear For my soul is the tatters left behind Without sunlight to mend up the rents And bleeding, oh anguish, oh rage I am freezing to death kissing you. I smashed a stick found in the woods Straight through the window of civility And cut myself on the shards of despair Scattered by my misery around me Slashing the earth even as they bit me And spattered the blood about in Maenad dance Half mad, I am some half-formed thing Come straight out of nightmare To terrorize those things that are so light, So pure they've never seen a soul shred Where I bleed, where the earth rips, I leave Things Shreds of facade given life by my fierce scream A creature, clad in tatters of dead joy, Bleeding the red of the holly berries And crowned with their spiky leaves By the light of the sun's mirror, I am running through the frosts of winter Failing my search for the sun himself When did my strength fail? Seeing the sun die, year after year This is nothing new and yet Every winter, I find myself here Near frozen, full bleeding for lack of a fire, Cringing but still thirsting for a taste of magic. © Anne Cross, 1997

Created: November 20, 1997 Last updated: March 19, 1998 http://www.watson.org/~juniper/poetry/again.html