Hello Winter!

Winter is here! Today it even snowed! But before that happened, I wrote this poem about coldness, loneliness, and the like. Hope you enjoy it! Let me know what it makes you think of and how or where I could make it better.

Heaven Upheld
Atlas shivers where he stands;
naked he holds the naked sky
with no stroke to sooth his blistered hands.
And who is it that holds the world up high
above the black and empty well,
the void of unreachable stars?
If these two stand alone, who can tell
how long they can bear? How far
would we fall at their mistake?

The earth shakes,
and the maples let their leaves fall.
They can’t hold on; their grip is thin:
tender like a parent’s call,
and lazy as the sound of a violin,
diminuendo. The steady drift down
into winter days, heavy and slow,
shuts windows and doors all over town.
The wanderers weigh the air and go
home in search of rest.

I feel it in my chest;
cold in the night beneath my sheets,
a burden also presses my heart.
My mind awakens and skips a beat
in confusion. When did I start
to listen to the stillness outside,
or reach into the dark air above?
I hold on to what? Neither space nor pride,
nor sky, nor worlds, nor love.
Yet these uphold my waking hours.

Though we build our solitary towers
on shaky ground, it sways in time
with the restless motions of solitude.
Listen! There are gods confined,
whispering below us, while we brood
above them like a thick mist; they remain
patient as statues. We cannot turn away
from this seclusion under spitting rain.
Come inside with me! We’ll stay

beneath this pillared roof, warm and dry,
to build a fire in your hands, a hearth in mine.