Winter
The snow isn’t dirty,
but filled with
indents
left by feet and twigs.
Trees
stand out
in dark contrast with the
blown fields,
shocks of deep brown
in the gel of shining molten white.
The tempest whorls away,
shades of s h at ter ed
wh i te
in blowing circles,
columns of rising warmth.
The white mist
scatters,
silver broken apart by age and rust,
golden red and brown,
better left unmentioned.
A puffed layer rests,
holes in the pillow mounted atop brambles,
thorns,
brown leaves fallen to the dirt,
becoming a sordid helmet.
Layered paint, primer,
no sun distinguishing wall from wild.
It joins the snowy streets.
The grey sky stands,
backdrop to the
painted glass of city,
a message of
entrapment.
Drops of rain cascade, freezing
tiny
sinkholes
forming in the sheets of snow.
The ground becomes unstable.
Frozen moisture traps entirely,
as verse confined to three such lines,
a prison of white.
Exercise consists of walking through
paths of crust-covered drifts,
oaths that I would survive.
Bluffs of concealed leaves rustle in a show of trust.
A patch of ice
black
against the grainy ground.
A crash; a scream.
Gone
Frozen Air
The cold sticks in your throat and makes you cough;
the air is dry though snow is on the ground,
and everything is white.
Not everything, of course.
The pavement is grey,
the trees are brown,
the houses are different colours,
but they all have a white undertone,
made pale by the snow but more so by the cold.
Everything about them screams cold.
The houses, though warm inside, appear as tombs,
homes to lost souls.
The trees, alive, hibernating, dead,
but still everywhere around us,
branches cutting through sky,
black lightning bolts in air.
The pavement, covering so much earth,
and in places frozen.
This place is cold.
I feel hot.
I’m feeling lightheaded from the cold and heat.
I pull my hood back, my hat from my head.
My hair goes brittle, a moist kind of fragility which always comes with cold.
My legs are aching,
the kind of ache you can’t quite feel until you step out into winter.
What makes the cold so fearful?
We must survive it.
It isn’t a thing to fear, on pain of death.
It’s a thing that teaches us to live,
though not right now.
Now, we must survive, and get back inside.
