Hibernation in the Northern Climes

The color of Christmas is white:
snow, and also
the breath of children.

Time, too, is white,
although small attention is given;
and there are nights
when a full moon whitens the land.

And, then, there's bones,
white bones from wherever taken
and brought back home
to be sown in beds of remembrance:

someone we've known
whether parent or sister or brother
who sat and ate
more than once at our Christmas table:
then forever lost;

as, indeed, every Christmas is lost:
just as faces here
will disappear in a wintry sleep,
white beneath white frost.