“Winter’s Withered Hand”, a poem

 

Winter’s withered hand

Scrapes across muted landscapes

And steals comfort from a sullen earth.

 

Birds fall frozen to the ground,

Lambs to the seasonal slaughter,

Ducks held fast in unflinching ice.

 

The elders give up the ghost ,

Just fade away

In this death-howling season and

Pale newborns struggle towards warmth.

 

In this silenced land of winter,

colors stark, dissolved,

Black limbs lifted to a somber sky

Like wooden beggars pleading for alms.

 

I listen for the melting

One unseasonable day—

The breaking of ice around a dam,

The baby babble of some brook

The laugh of a crow overhead,

The drip-drip of a leaky faucet—

 

The earth will turn

On its axis

And with this

Comes the promise

Of Spring.

 

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted,  2016

Tags: death of wildlife, fierce weather, poetry, Winter