It is a time

When dawn is dusk

And winter shows its hollow husk

When sun is torn across open sky

Like silken cloth

When river is brown

With rushing tide

Over stumbled rocks

With urgent desire

To pull and push its way

Through battered banks

 

Is it only then that we feel winters?

Driving crush

Its desire to stake its claim

Its place

Now leaves have gone

And skeletal trees sway

With waving hands

In mute agreement

To all that has been

And all that is yet to come

Bowing in respectful resignation

Of all that has been stripped

And laid bare

A battle scarred

Hinterland

Of carnal waste

Savaged and battered

By rain and frost

Leaving the suggestion

That nothing will

Nothing can ever survive again

Where scattered seed is blown

To lay in wait

For its time

To once again rise  

When river will lap and lick

In gentle meander

And heat will bring

The stretch and yawn

Of the blue and the green

As rising sap

Will lead to the bloom

And the blossom