Winter is eating the trees
Snow
I feel you
In my bones.
My feet ache
The air hangs heavy, grey.
Gently,
You kiss my cheeks
Floating, swirling, dancing.
Like a lover you steal swiftly past
And dazzle me.
I am haunted by your beauty
Stung by your frozen touch
Enchanted and at once afraid.
© J. Brain, 2010
Winters Bell
It rang,
unclear against the sound of traffic and dripping rooves
It rang out against the frost and frozen village lanes
Its repeating, skittering along the surface of the dulled stream
and continued to ring.
Winter’s bell
Not a peal but a call to listen, attend
And then it came
Gently blowing across the roads and paths
Snow, winter had arrived.
© JBrain, 2010
Lines for Winter, by Mark Strand
for Ros Krauss
Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself -
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.
This takes my breath away
