Allegory

All you have left to do is remember

When the raw, frosty air fades

Into a soft, tepid breeze

That brushes over your sunburned skin,

That ruffles through the blooming sapling’s leaflets,

That whispers through your window

On the evenings when you sip sour lemonade,

The discomfort of the ice cubes on your teeth

Reminding you of the tingling frostbite

That had numbed your cheeks just months before.

When the untouched blanket of whiteness melts,

Elucidating a vivid felicity,

Where the aroma of blooming daisies and lilies perfume the air,

Where children’s laughter drowns the melody of the birds’ chirping,

When the most lugubrious tragedy is

The salty wind and water knotting your hair.

Then the birds whose songs decorated the world

Dwindle from the branches, whose chlorophylled leaves

Crinkle into a brown, perished crisp,

And what seemed charged of vitality drains into a numb vacancy.