I am a pink dress.  I feel like spring. 

I am a red cone sitting upon a young girl’s head, directing her thoughts; funneling her energy. 

I am the daisies in her blond hair. 

I am a smile. 

I am a match, lit with flame, in a young girl’s hand. 

I am a flame, about to meet an unlit candle. 

I am the candlewick that awaits the flame.  How will that change me? 

I am the candles warming – six of them – lit – looking at the last unlit candle.  Boy, he has no idea how this flame will transform him. 

I am quartz stone – pyramids – holding energy – reaching for more.  Feel me vibrate. 

I am holly, green, still alive, but dying. 

I am holly berries, alive, and seeds to give more life. 

I am ivy.  Wrapping around the table – decorative – and winding the energy into something useful. 

I am the Yule Log – dead, but still useful in this celebration.  

I am the table cloth and the table beneath that you cannot see. 

I am the rug full of color.  The young girl kneels upon me.  I give her warmth that the wooden floor would not. 

I am the window through which she does not look. 

I am the glass, warm on one side and cold to the other. 

I am the warm room.

I am the snow on the windowsills. 

I am the world outside the window – the deepest indigo through the glass. 

I am icicles, cold.  I am so cold. 

I am snail, toad, grape, oak, mushroom, acorn.  I am alive.

I am cold – snow – ice – slushed up against this window pane.  As I look in, I see a young girl.  She is warm.  She is lighting candles, celebrating all alone, but celebrating nonetheless.  I see the back of her head, but I can just tell that she is content.  Maybe even happy.  I don’t really know happiness.  I am what I am – cold water, melting in my own way against this glass.  But while I am here, before I melt away and show my temporary self, let me tell you what I see from my side of the glass – what this young girl does not see. 

There is a child with a tattered coat.  The light shining through this window above me spills upon the girl in the tattered coat, just as the snow falling from above spills from the sky, landing on her clothes, her hair, her eyelashes.  She feels that she has little to celebrate.  She is looking for a match to light a small fire so that she may feel some warmth.  She is hungry.  She might knock on the door and ask for food, but she is so far removed from the world inside the warm room – by the thinnest piece of glass – that she doesn’t even understand that it is there. 

Won’t one of these girls look through the window to see the other?  They would be friends.  I am snow.  I am so temporary.  I would introduce them if I could, but all that I can do is watch them both – until I melt – tears without salt – and lose my perch and my view until the next harsh winter.