OLD MAN WINTER
- Dark Poets Club
- May 20
- 1 min read
By Kruse
The damp, dark earth of the field lies combed and naked
under a colourless sky.
A steel gate leans
unhinged and slantwise
against a hedge of thorn.
Three crows etch the sky.
An old man, stoop shouldered, stands in the gateway
holding a small bird.
It is weightless in his hand
one berry black eye staring
as its fluttering heartbeats still.
Winter sighs, his breath white in the raw air.
His frigid benediction was too much for this tiny being,
as it is for many.
Some days,
as he treads stiff-legged across the land,
he feels it is too much
even for him.
He brings the bird to his mouth and huffs a breath
which whitens and freezes.
He blows and a tiny snowstorm of silver crystals,
glittering, and hinting of feather,
spins out into the quiet day.