Chloe Denice’s poem: Melancholy
The Earth speaks in whispers. Her call
is dead leaves, ponds icing over, a child leaving home.
She cries: We are all together! You know my name,
but you have forgotten it. Your love of Spring does not heal.
Your love of comfort does not soothe. Your teeth bite, they ache,
and you trample layers of growth. You are mean,
friend, and you see no beauty in the cold. You see only hell,
and wander namelessly, lonely, forgetting the others. Your cell
is an avalanche of doubt… You forgot: in this place, we are all holy,
all Paradise lost and regained. We are all comely,
visible, and extraordinary. It is up to you. Stop being coy
and remember, we are all together: simple, elegant, frost-bitten, calm.