The Dark Months

And so we enter the dark months.

Where that which makes us see blurs our vision,

The blood that keeps us warm chills our bones

And the light that brightens the day tarries beneath the horizon.

The days of the white world are upon us

When the air nips keenly at our faces

And the soles of our shoes find no purchase.

A time when our very existence paralyzes our nerves and sets our mind on home.

So let the trees shed their coats for a new blanket,

Skeletal fingers reaching for the sky.

And set the burrowed beast to sleep, farewell the raptors cry.

For call and song of hawk and lark returns,

The beasts awake and flowers bloom,

In summer's morn and winter's afternoon.

The silenced brook will speak again,

The rivers roaring flow begin,

In winters sickly days will rise again the spring.

Rise again to warm our blood.

Rise again to break the fog.

Rise and hail to summer's prologue.

But like the night, the noon must pass.

Upon the world the dusk must grasp.

To bare the trees and burrow beast,

The hawk to shoo, to chase the lark.

To vision cloud and months turn dark.