Lion and lamb play, wrestle like siblings
until one of them is wounded,
removed from play, the lamb whimpers,
lion wins with a roar and a savage gust
as flakes tumble from the sky where
yesterday’s warm and misty rain fell
upon my daughter dexterous in her
climb like the arboreal creatures we all used to be,
as other caregivers watch nervously.
The buds swelling at the fingertips of the skeleton tree
waiting, preparing, for the warmth of summer
to convert my daughter’s carbon dioxide to oxygen
so she can breathe freely among cement,
brick, limestone, and glass, but…
today the lion roars fierce and the wind cuts
turning fingers painful and red.

This winter is different, they say, colder for longer
but still the same: spring will follow winter
the tilt of the axis, gravity enforcing our orbit ensures it,
or have the descendants of ancient hominids gone so far
nothing will be the same for us who came of age
with belief in our superiority to nature,
while this new generation experiences an alternative normal,
where the lamb concedes perpetual defeat, without a whimper?