Winter long and winter deep,
see the beauty that you seek.
Deep within the snowy mounds,
soft with silence, life abounds.

Know you now, when winter comes,
in numbers to big for most sums,
not all life beneath white slumbers,
life abounds in many numbers.

And when spring finally appears,
all that was white disappears
life again will be reborn,
flower, fairy, rose, and thorn

Judith Oliveri