For Jane on her 60th birthday,

November 17, 2014

The birds of winter have returned—

The house and garden buttoned down

Against the cold and damp and snow—

The leaves hang brittle, brown and dead,

Their colors fled like summer’s birds.

Your birth was sixty years ago–

Today, I mourn the empty space, 

The granite stone, the stolen days,

The vanished dreams now wreathed with tears

Like winter rain on frozen ground.

The birds of winter will depart—

The birds of summer will return—

And house and garden will again emerge.

Four years of winter bind my heart—

But buds remain within my soul.

                                (c) Harry Proudfoot