Prayer for a Winter's Evening

Please help me to love this

season of cold and snow.

Help me to see the beauty of

bare branches, hard and slim and dark--

Of stiff wheat-colored grasses

draped in white and sparkled ice--

Of a chilled pink moon rising steady

Over the crest of a powdered mountain.

Or

If I can't see these things

and sing praise, then

please let me thank this 

season of cold and snow

for giving and giving away

to the riot of daffodils

that follows.