Snow

The winter snows
Its drifting flows
Engulf my way
Surround my sight
With pale cold day
And crippled light.
I’m all alone
And slowly shown
The gorgeous show
That stills the wood,
And far below
Ablaze with snow,
The silent and forgotten road.


The world froze
As Boreas blows
An aching drone.
Each trunk stands barren
Like a bone.
The living cold
Like Lethe’s flow
Makes time feel old
And long ago.
The tremulous and sighing trees,
The world brought down to its knees
In deference to this constant foe.

The hard earth knows what winter brings
And biding the concealing snow,
It dreams of coming golden springs.

The river’s stopped,
Its ledges topped
With drifts of white
And icy sheets.
And in the vacant winter light
In tempo with the coming night
The heart of winter’s stillness beats.
Night’s firm regime,
Pale twilights beam,
A cold owl call,
A stony pond,
No warmth at all
Or light beyond.
This lovely world
Remains my home.
The crystal, dazzling, starry dome
The sky that oversees it all,
The north wind’s groaning, plaintive, call
A beauty all its own, unfurled.