It's early morning.
I said goodnight to you some time ago,
not intending to sleep.
Instead,
I've been lying in bed
thinking about winter
and distance
and writing the same poem three times over
in slightly different ways.
(Not including now.)

I like to think
that I can be quite the poet if I try,
or when the mood strikes.
And the words are there,
I know they are.

It should be springtime,
but yesterday there was snow in my hair
and the wind bit through my coat
and even now my room is too cold.

Now,
if I were a better poet,
I would be able to make the analogy
that pounds so insistently within me
as clearly as my heartbeat.
Comparing you to spring --
how, like spring,
you warm me and bring sunshine and blue sky
and how, like spring,
you're still not here with me.

But,
seeing as I am not a better poet,
or one of any skill whatsoever
(obviously)
I'll just have to say

that it's too cold
that you're too far
that I wish, I wish, I wish
that spring would come to Canada
and bring you along with it.