Prompt for the 17th begins with hopelessness, to end on a positive note.
Cause and Effect
Winter wanders in weeks of darkness, and I,
in a cold despair, wander too, though
my body never travels, yet my mind spends
winter aging, becomes inseparable:
one the cause, one the effect or perhaps
the other way round.
Only when the sun returns, when the wind
blows away the snow, do my thoughts return
to hopes of spring, the cycle of seasons,
warmth on my skin.
I return from thoughts of where it all ends
to focus on where it begins again.
Carol A. Stephen
April 17, 2018
Quillfyre 
I love that cycle idea Carol! I took the liberty of deriving from it, using more repetition, to see where it could also go… Yours, – Mark
Awakening
When the sun returns, when the wind
Blows away the snow, my thoughts return
To hopes of spring, the cycle of seasons,
The warming touch of another on my skin.
After the long weeks of winter darkness,
My mind wandering with no one there,
Numb from cold despair, the sun returns
And the wind blows away the snow
And my thoughts return to the hopes
Of spring, to the cycle of seasons,
To the warm touch of another’s skin
From where it ends to where it begins.
(By Carol Stephen and Mark Herron)
Love it, Mark!