Sunday

beyond the gold leaves
yet to find oblivion
a red sun rises

Kiss

on winter’s cold lips
willingly the rose succumbs
to a kiss of death

Angel’s Fire, A Westward Sky in February

what peculiar light shines bright
beyond the darkened woods tonight
which angel of the evening’s fire
lays body broken on the pyre
and slain by winter’s armoured hands
to spread such light on its wasteland.

Fleeting

fleeting are these flowers

of winter’s final breath

silvered reminiscences

mementos, that it’s death

to which we all in seasons old,

and new just like the spring

must bless our days as sacrifice

and to its altars bring.

Broken Trees

silver cinder’d
frosted fingers
across these
broken trees
in hues renewed
their boughs exude
death’s facsimile
of leaves
upon the breeze
they dance with ease
exuding echoes
of the sun
yet winter’s cast
the summer past
their life in part
is run.

A Winter Song

and from the breath of distant trees
comes the music of the dawn
no wings upon the notes are sketched
no voices to them drawn
this is the winter’s symphony
the wind as bow on bough
which plays these melancholy morns
that does the dark avow.

Herald

silence
save the rain
new winter’s tears
and yet
what is that low refrain?

there
as sunshine
through the grey
a single voice
the lonely songbird
heralding the day.

The Rose Sleeps

lo! the rose sleeps in her grave
sheltered by no stone
no resurrection for her save
when winter’s gales are blown

for the summer’s warmest showers
have dried to death’s cold hand
and the harvest’s gifted hours
are stolen from this land

so the rose lies in her grave
blackened foul decay
no raptured resurrection save
the memories she plays.

December

December
a blade keen
and ice cold
slices the air
performing
autopsies
on the trees.

Last Will

when all breath is gone and spent
and my heart is turned cold stone
from my breast this muscle rend
to bury in the woods alone
turn my body into ash
that it skyward should depart
but the one thing that I ask
leave earthbound my tired heart
for this moist ground should be the bed
eternal for that part of me
from which all worthy I have said
or loved or held or ever been.