The days are short,
The sun a spark,
Hung thin between
The dark and dark.
Fat snowy footsteps
Track the floor.
Milk bottles burst
Outside the door.
......
My quietness has a man in it, he is transparent
and he carries me quietly, like a gondola, through the streets.
He has several likenesses, like stars and years, like numerals.
My quietness has a number of naked selves,
so many pistols I have borrowed to protect myselves
from creatures who too readily recognize my weapons
and have murder in their heart!
though in winter
they are warm as roses, in the desert
......
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.
......
The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale;
The nightingale with feathers new she sings,
The turtle to her make hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs,
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale,
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings,
The fishes float with new repaired scale,
The adder all her slough away she slings,
The swift swallow pursueth the flyës smale,
......
Old elm that murmured in our chimney top
The sweetest anthem autumn ever made
And into mellow whispering calms would drop
When showers fell on thy many coloured shade
And when dark tempests mimic thunder made -
While darkness came as it would strangle light
With the black tempest of a winter night
That rocked thee like a cradle in thy root -
How did I love to hear the winds upbraid
Thy strength without - while all within was mute.
......
Winter a season
to show reason
this time there is no treason.
Where thoughts are provoked to ponder.
The snow, the wind, the rain
wild and purposeful
friends without pacts
never seeking gain.
A visit in turns
a scope for returns
......
In the heart of winter, I stand,
Surrounded by a landscape of white silence.
The snow blankets the earth,
Each flake a delicate touch,
Soft, yet unyielding in its cold embrace.
The trees are skeletal fingers,
Reaching up to a sky of muted gray,
Their limbs bare, stripped of life,
Yet beautiful in their stark simplicity.
......
Winter wraps us in her cold embrace,
Icy chills whipping across our face.
Leafless bough; a muddy place,
Winter is showing us; her harsh face.
Looing out from atop Pinnacle Hill,
Church Spires wrapped in a misty chill,
Bredon in the distance; cold and still,
Winter is settling down on every hill.
......
A winter footprint in prime
I wasn't looking for the love of crime.
A well meaning will, mended
by spoken cloth.
Reluctant snow bought
pressure for me to bow
weathered eyes beneath my brow.
Sheltered but warns a busy storm
an unlikely norm.
Soon delightful words to corn.
......
In winter's shroud, the moon arises, a sage,
Clad in robes of frost, her visage grave and pale.
She wanders 'mongst the sleeping, barren age,
A silent sentry in the velvet veil.
Her gaze, a shepherd's crook, guides weary souls,
Through nights of ice and desolation's hold.
Beneath her lantern, fields of snow unroll,
Where silence whispers tales of ancient scrolls.
......