The winter sun is shining
Beams of bright,
Shows the paths that is winding
There beneath the low slung arc,
Filtered light
Through branches naked and stark,
Bare for all that look to see
Exposed limbs,
Their colored robes have dropped free,
To the beat of murmured breeze,
Dirge or hymns
Song of the stripping of leaves,
Drifting light.

Winter wind is whispering
Who goes there,
The wishful one wandering
Beneath those naked branches,
In cold air
Hoping for frozen chances
Lost in the litter of leaves,
Now in death,
For the color one still grieves,
Dry and turned to shades of brown,
With cold breath
And crunching the only sound,
One goes there.

Cave of gray stone mountain side,
From the light
Sorrow filled eyes try to hide,
Where ice tears can slowly melt,
Through the night,
None can see misery felt
As one moans for barren trees
Winter raped,
Pilfered wrapping on the breeze
Shift nervously on the trail,
Till moonscape
Hide ones passage with its pale,
Gone from sight.

The snow falls after midnight,
Covering
The dead leaves beneath the white,
One sits without a fire,
Slow freezing
Lacking hope and desire,
Watches the filling forest,
Sitting light
On naked branches will rest
The moon also hides away,
Snowy night
Blends to a morning of gray
Concealing.

Dawn flutters ice crust lashes,
Snow moves on
Blanketing as it passes
In frozen white all is still,
Night is done
And yet remains icy feel
Stiffening in its embrace
Of cold touch,
All travels it did erase
And encase in icy cave,
Not too much,
Frozen just this side of grave,
One moves on.

Broken path makes crunching sound,
One must go,
Leaving the slight shelter found
To continue to one goal,
Through the snow,
Despite bitter touching cold,
Rising comes the northern winds,
In ones face,
Into its rushing one bends.
There’ll be no further delay,
No rest place
Along the hard frozen way.
One must go.