Winter’s Midas
Self-Reflective Poem
My chest feels like an emptied stone cave
Nestled in the peaks of pine-ridden mountainside
In which a giant, brown grizzly once hibernated
But decided to finish his sleep months earlier than expected
Leaving bare the stone walls of raw, uncut earth
Completely subject to the tentacles of Winter’s Midas
Who returned to reclaim territory with an icy touch
Creating an unyielding arctic mantle over
The once warmed
Then exposed
Then frozen hollow.
more by A. M. LAINE
photograph by Jacob Aguilar-Friend