Erren Geraud Kelly’s most recent poem to appear here was Sunday Morning (November 2013).

what i like about winter
By Erren Geraud Kelly

is walking the streets with you
as the cold cries and covers us
like a hand and i’m looking
at the trees, all gold and red and yellow
the uniform of fall and your hair
is scarlet, which is the color
of a leaf and your skin
could be snow; it is so luminous
and soft and clear
and i imagine us playing
in a pile of leaves, like two kids
which we are, even tho
we are grown up, because you
never grow up, even as you grow old
though i love growing old with you, because
you are the best thing about winter;
walking with you on the streets, even if
the temperature drops below freezing
and we have to hide behind gloves and mittens and coats
because being with you feels like summer
and i can enjoy summer with you,
even during winter, would love to
skate with you on a pond
we could write each other’s names
on the ice and draw figure 8s
and beatles songs are a nice soundtrack to
winter. you could be michelle; michelle, ma belle
who warms her hands by the fireplace full
of norwegian wood, while good day sunshine
makes an appearance, we can walk the streets
of burlington until it goes into a long
and winding road
to a coffeehouse and i can borrow
a folk singer’s guitar and serenade you; i’ll
sing you a ballad to match the snow
falling outside. the snow matches your
hands, which are white and soft; they are like
wings. they smell like ivory soap
or heaven. they are hands that have
never known suffering. they are hands that
touch me and revive me. my hands have known
hard work, have known war, have known struggle
have known victory
these hands will touch your body, which looks
and feels like a figure 8, which could be snow
or could be a song, if a woman’s body
could be a song, it is always music
the way you laugh, when you throw snowballs at me
or when you fall on a pile of leaves
when you play piano, it is snow playing a tune
isn’t it good, this moment by the fire with this norwegian
wood, burning as vermont trees do a striptease,
and shakes summer onto the ground?
just as a vermont girl does her striptease and shakes her
innocence
and lets it fall onto the floor
and the room will become summer, even in winter
as your leaf-colored hair erupts into flames, making a
lovely contrast to your snow-colored body
which is as elegant as a poem, musical as
a beatles song and mysterious as

god

and it doesn’t matter to me if you don’t
believe in god; you are a deity, the god that
will always listen, the god that always comes
when i call, the one that never fails

you always come like winter, like a song
this is the moment, this is the song
i’m writing that lennon and mccartney should’ve wrote
but they’ve had plenty of wow moments
in their lives and i’m entitled to a few

our moment is walking the streets in winter
like two star-crossed lovers though we
are not tragic like romeo and juliet
we do not have to have tragedy to make our
love meaningful, we can just hold a pile of

leaves

in our hands and that would be substantial;
that would give us all the meaning we need!
your hand, holding a pile of leaves or a snowball
either one could be my heart
which i lost, but you got back for me;

a snowball is the heart of winter

a snowball is the color of you

and you are holding me
and i am holding winter when i
hold you
back in the coffeehouse
as the cold leaves its mark and the

breeze rustles the leaves that play a song called you