C OLD

Winter ... and still winter!
Down hill stagger the corn-stooks, heavy with ice.
Sheep in the bottom shiver.

The abandoned barn crumbles with wind and cold.
An elm darns like a crone above it,
With needle limbs that creak and clash
In and out endlessly:
But a rent of the sky still lets the snow in.
And my heart lets in the chill of the years ...
Of the years!