The Closest Place To Heaven Poem by Sherrie Lowe

Diagonal snow obliterating clear blue sky,
A cold, white duvet softening our footfalls.
Cushioned silence encompasses the path; our senses.
Trees link arms, jealously guarding the carpet
of last years fallen leaves: untouched by sun or rain.
We emerge to snow's persistent pressure,
Ethereal flakes adorn hair and eyelashes; settle onto soft, yielding mud puddles.
The brook.
It has life. It is life: a melodic presence, murmuring its music
as it travels on its journey through the years.
Unchanging, yet ever changing.
Babbling, gurgling, laughing; singing its song through the pebbles of its bed.
Under the bridge; meandering, then gone, out of sight.
A solitary robin stakes his territory from a naked, wintry branch.
We pass beneath, intruders in his world.
Yet this is our world, our woods, our brook.
Half a century, yet only yesterday.
Nothing's changed but our size, shrinking the woods.
As if to spotlight stimulated memories,
Jubilant sun dapples glade from a washed blue sky.