Winter

We are in Winter.
The trees have gasped, their leaves departed.
The rain has greened, the world again around us.
Quenched the world's lips but intends to stay.
It rolls in with the light of morning,
tapping its fingertips across the roofs at night,
coughing a cold wind, refusing to be ignored.

We throw ourselves into our harness,
the climb up icey roads,
sloshing through the mud of new days,
on old roads,
re-traversed,
the work begins.

Darkness falls.

A day becomes a moment,
an hour requires so much breathing,
plumes of steam we breath
chugging up the tracks well marked.
Forward.

Darkness falls,

Night so long we live it as day,
the chill our feet cannot heat our of the blankets,
sorrow that waits not to be scene in sun,
longing that is waiting for the passage of time.

We wait.
in whisper.

The darkness forgets the sun tomorrow
the darkness is the dawn that greets us as light is all too fleeting
we can not wait for her.

We wait,
until hope is not a smile or phrase,
not a thought to grow fond of.

No,
it is like the drum of rain,
it is the slosh of the puddles at our ankles
it is the wet that has soaked our shoes and does not dry
it is the chill that nips quickly to your nose
but last long in your bones

Hope lasts
though we no longer whisper.
No song of victory waits before us.
Darkness of darkness,
pass the life we could sing.

Death before us,
and all the ice deep within,
does not pray the prayers of sin.
It does not comfort,
or patently plead,
in silence it longs
for darkness to recede.

It is not hope from hearts sent
nor is it good will from men to men.

Oh but hope!
Hope beyond the call of joy,
beyond the eyes that reckon the void,
beyond the chill that causes our quakes
beyond the tears the wind does make.
Hope beyond the anguish and angst,
beyond the memories that have all but stayed.

We are in winter,
death and dark not staved.
We are in winter,
mud to trudge unpaved.
We are in winter,

a night.