Wintertime

The night ice oozes thickly through the blood.
Frost crumbles leaves, the reeds stand hard as spears.
The hills are silent, fleeced with snow. An owl
is watching, still as stone, for prey; the old man
dreams, his skull all echoes with the sound
of closing doors; his bony feet lie white,
and cold as the roots of leafless trees. Night
is all; no gleam or moonbeam lights the ground.
Deep in his bed the old man grabs a hold
of the sheet. The night beasts snuffle; they prowl
the dark beyond his door. And then, no fears:
the night ice oozes thickly through the blood.

 

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