Hiver

The bitter gale bites the wold,
the gray and sunless, grim and cold.
The light abandons leaf and stock
to anger howls of ice and rock.

The mists have muted mountain skies
where shadows looms, a shawl that lies
on secret valleys silence fills,
where granite groans and gravel mills.

Then lonely feet on lithous road,
upon the knees of peaks's abode,
where ancient forest anchour night,
would see to depths of softenned white.

The evergreen which ices mar,
though somber hue when seen afar,
is stubborn green though standing grim
in witherred winds, in winter's hymn.







Beneath the crust in nesting snow
a seed awaits the summer glow,
as life defeats the lords of death,
as love awaits the longing breath.

Atop a cliff the traveller sights
where gorges cleave the guessless heights
that drifting bridges dare to span
from ledge to ledge below the man.

He walks though worn that winter day;
his form is hid with fur array.
His leather boots abrade the snow
through holt and rime from high to low.

In shelterred dells he sheds his cape
betrays a face that trials shape,
the sun had worked, the wind had seared,
that aching labour etched and bleared.







His feet have reached the feral vales
where waits the truth of whisperred tales.
He longs for warmth of latent spring,
a hush before the hollows sing.

He sees the spires soaring tall
where brambles brace the batterred wall.
He reaves his furs in rising heat
and heaps his wool behind his feet.

Perplexed perhaps, he ponders thorns
that slew the others silence mourns.
And rotting deer they rent and spun.
He shades his eyes from shafts of sun.

The light has warmed his linen shirt
and broad his shoulders, braced and girt.
A glint of light, of glass perchance,
concludes his thought and clears his trance.







He sunders hedges, severs briars,
that offerred death to other viers,
No barb can halt his burning strides
though claws can clutch his cloth and hides.

He won the walls that witch had cursed;
he saw that morn the sun traversed.
The noon has passed and nears the eve
when frost returns its fragile weave.

His shirt is rent, his shoes are torn
and strips remain on stubborn thorn.
He pauses from the piercers's test;
the dust and sweat bedeck his chest.













The seasons bleached a soldier's skull,
his gilded arms are gaunt and dull;
his threaded vests are thinned as smoke,
and spiders weave his spectral cloak.

His walk disturbs the webs and dust
and hinges wrought of hungry rust.
This chamber knew a child's birth;
that hall had held her hope and mirth.

The gate is kept by guards of bone;
her Father waits in falterred throne.
With hollowed eyes and haggard fingers,
in seeming life the sovereign lingers.

He walks amid the weighted stone,
the witherred wealth and worried throne,
where none could hear his nuanced words
save hares and wrens and hummingbirds.







The spinning wheel is spilled beside
the drifting girl with dreams denied.
Her sighs are stilled in seeming death.
He fills her lips with fertile breath.

Her hair is net with honey light
as day descends to dark of night.
A final flush, ere fares the warm,
of scarlet gold describes her form.

The clusterred clouds are clotted blood:
the sun is raped by sea and flood;
no gentle passion joins the pair:
the skies convulse in scorching air.

A hundred years of hollowed dreams
where phantoms ruled the fell regimes
are split apart and spent aside.
Then wakes anew the waiting bride.







The day has gone; the dark returned.
Now fade the coals where fire burned.
The black is now a blessed caress;
his fingers learn her face and tress.

The moon ascends from silver meres
which soothed a maiden's sorrowed tears.
It smiles on her smoothed emotions
as love defeats the lulling potions.

The woman wakes in world of night
and sees the moon in sinking flight.
Though once she weeps in wan regret,
she sings her bliss to silver net.

The dance resumes, usurping death,
the pair unites with panted breath.
Repeat the chant from prior years
that moves the heart with mingled tears.







Perplexed perhaps, she ponders morn
in castle aged and country lorn.
What sets her steps to cyclic fates?
What royal cage for Rose awaits?

Her husband chides her haunted stare
and waves afar to warmth and air.
He bids farewell to boding ghosts.
She cleaves his hand and holds him close.

The pair depart upon a horse
and fare to face their future's course.
Away! the walls of weighted stone!
Away! the wealth and worried throne!