The Rest of Winter's Ache

Not so long ago, trees bore leafy branches as garlands of honor, flowers wore their colors as proud vestments, and the grasses shot up from the earth and waved warmth in soft winds.
            A glorious time they had; a dance of growing things. 
Yet, with all its splendor and majesty and delight, it was a performance.  And like all who take a final bow when the curtain comes to claim their bodies, a great weariness falls like velvet—and then grows a deep desire for respite.  That was when it came, as surely as the sun would rise—a winter’s chill that would fill the air, touching all, and the weary performers would lay down their stunning beauties for a starker landscape.
But of late, the rest has grown shorter.  And the performance lasts longer.  The beauty becomes cloying—the rhythm is thrown. 
There has been little of barren wonder.
Then, the voice of one calls into the darkness. 
It is joined by another.  Then, many.
The call to burden the earth no more.  To take, to need, less.  A calling to wondrous loss—the embrace of the full term of Winter’s Ache.
A delight in letting all the world rest.

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