Snows pocked with footprints that wantonly wander,
Nights lost in the shivers with nostrils close-frozen,
Glarings from granules that presage sun-setting,
Fireplaces fervent with memory of summer.
Memory now fled with the russets of triumphs
Gone from the field with trumpets outblaring,
Leaving the leaves as the legions left dying –
Strewn after battle and covered with shroud-cloth.

This is the snowtime, the coldtime of winter,
This is the age of the frost-fractured dawn,
This is the hour of ultimate dying,
The eon of losing, the neap-tide now gone.

Boughs capped with patches that heavily linger,
Ice baked in fingers with glass convolutions,
Gaunt silhouettes race in fright from the presence
Of winter, of blizzard, of frostbite, of fear,
Fear now outreaching with dark claws of wanting,
Invading the field with drums drum-a-drumming,
Enraging the earth as the armies of Ajax –
Smote during the battle – then covered with shroud-cloth.

This is the snowtime, the coldtime of winter,
The age of the frigid, the moment when dawning
Is lost, like a whisper, at once and forever,
And spawns in its wake a Springtime reborn.