Love like winter skies

By Royal W Rhodes

PROMPT — What is Love?

moves close and far

the way love does

leaving on each of us

wounds of white roses

you and I knew well

what freezings held

us locked in ice

with eyes fixed wide

and it was not love

just being so timely

when from wintry sleep

we woke to absence

the heart offered hunts

from door to closed door

singing on cold doorsteps

little flurries of melodies

sometimes the host

beckoned inside to warm

a moment, a little while,

like a poem's brief address

and then the outdoor

dark invited -- you followed

some other ghost making

angels in the snowdrifts

I will go on loving

you, my old soul, your body

like snowflakes on the tongue,

not ice but sparks of fire

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Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who taught courses on global religions. He enjoys reading poetry, ancient and modern, and listening to Classical music on the radio. He writes from Gambier, OH.