There’s something about the shift between seasons that always makes me pause — that thin, aching space where warmth starts to fade and you can almost feel winter breathing on your neck. That’s where Before the Cold was born.
It’s not really a poem about the weather. It’s about memory — about holding on to love, light, and color before life inevitably turns gray. I think we all have those moments where we just want time to stop for a while… to stay in the sunlight a little longer, to remember how it felt before the frost came.
When I wrote the line, “Show me once the water’s brilliant glow, before the frost arrives with bitter song,” I wasn’t thinking of literal water. I was thinking of the heart — how it holds warmth, reflection, and depth. And how even when the cold comes — whether it’s loss, distance, or change — that warmth doesn’t truly vanish. It just retreats below the surface.
That’s what Before the Cold is about: the quiet defiance of love that endures. The human need to remember what was beautiful, even when everything else starts to fade.
It’s a poem for those who’ve ever said goodbye too soon — for those who know that love, once felt deeply, never really ends.
If you’d like to read the full poem and the literary analysis, it’s waiting for you here:
Sometimes, poetry isn’t about resisting the winter. It’s about finding the fire that still burns beneath it.
Until tomorrow,
— Al Konda