Fire and Snow (2009)

There’s irony in the cold and falling snow
Which comes by late December to the North.
It drives us up the path and through the door
To the fires we tend within our huddled homes.

Fire and snow, they balance in the end,
And press us into warm companionship,
Necessity in this four-month land of frost
Where ever and still we live as sojourners.

Yes, there is always comfort in a blaze
Of burning logs, in the fragrance of their smoke,
Which, prayer-like, rises up into the sky,
In familiar faces gathered for a time.

Here in this frozen land we find ourselves,
And here we are drawn by warmth which is our own;
Fire and snow, we balance in the end,
And find ourselves in the others that we know.