The Fourth Calling

It is snowing, which is rare now.

Remember when we were young?
Nutty times, those -- like when
I combed loose the dandruff
before you showered.
It could take hours:
heady (of course) massage for you,
strange catharsis for me.
Your dark blue robe would be covered
in flakes, which I'd feed the wind --

Yes, covered, as though
you were turning into a snowman.
And then you did.
Into ice.  Then I.
This was in the mountains
where it snowed constantly,
many years after you
found that good shampoo
to replace our silly ritual.

You have thawed now.
The mountains have called me
thrice already,
and I hear them once again:
the forest, the quiet,
the wildflowers,
the lure of pure snow, now
in the guise of raindrops --
your tears.

It makes no sense.
Why pine for a frigid place
only one of us survived?
It must be said, the sky
was a delicious deep blue,
that I marveled daily at its
majestic robe, in between
or even during, snowstorms.

I am still ice, frosted.
If you touch, you'll stick.
It isn't worth the risk.

It's so cold down here
in the temperate zone,
where the birds serenade all day,
where much-missed crickets woo
in dreamy darkling rhythms,
and roses of every color bloom
over and again, dropping their petals
like kaleidoscope flakes beneath
lustrous languorous showers.

Copyright Julie K. Shavin 2009