Poem Symphonic 1st Movement: Sonata-Allegro

The face I saw one full winter ago,

Today still haunts the air of spring and fall;

A wind image of frost, of ice, of snow.

The rustling summer trees harken the call.

Her name escapes my oft-fragile tongue.

My thoughts go back to find Decembering.

I knew only the girl was frothy young,

That blur is all that comes remembering.

The rest goes hasteningly away again,

Like melting snows in March that greet the spring.

The memory melts to torrents of rain,

It washes wild and floods everything.

In spring, before the blossom-buds can break,

The empty fields, so barren-bleak they ache.

The face I saw one Fall Winter ago

Is blown icy with time’s blue, pale, cool breath.

And once this soul floated high, to and fro.

Then winter came full blast; the depth of death

Had come. In February she left.

I wail silent for fading memory

To bring some lingering image to me.

Face of past winter, I know you, don’t I?

Haunt of spring, of air and memory still,

Will the snow and ice again bring you by?

Must I live as best as can be until

Time turns me to rusting brittlely, too?

Decembering must I go always more

Seeking images of fading fog blue?

Frothy youth, I knew in days long before.

Time was when I could have known so well this

Lost image, but carelessly she escaped.

Love was brief, a candle flame and quick kiss.

Blossom-buds may break in spring before long.

Birds may come home, hear me, share in my song.

The buds may soon break.

The face I saw last winter

Will be in bird song.

Winter is the season to lose;

Feel it seventy-seven times greater.

Blue windy moods, white empty snows,

Each a dawn of emotional weather.

The face that I knew last winter

Is in the ashes underneath the logs.

It is in the smoke and splinters.

It is in the ember glow that is gone.

All faces, like the fireplace flames,

Are fragile, made of burning features.

They cannot be constructed the same

Way out of the cinders.

The face I knew last winter;

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

But she is not dead as cinders.

The face is just far from us.

There must not be emotion.

It must be told from reason.

Calm, with no quaking voice,

All in order in its season.

If my voice shakes at the end,

It is only that it is tired.

It has not been by my choice

That I tell the tale over again.