Cruel Beast

Winter has been cruel to the woods in the hills.  She has teased for so long, offering false glimpses of spring to trees that do not suspect her deception.  Warm weather and rain to wash away the dry leaves of fall were just trickery to those tall residents of the hills and hollers of home.

Now she does the inevitable, she rushes in the cold, the snow and throws it at all who were fooled by the false spring.  She hurls ice and piles snow upon rock and root in mockery of the trust that the mountains placed in the signs of spring.  She mocks and she destroys, as is her wont.  She is a beast, hideous and cruel in nature.

Don't be fooled by the seemingly gentle vistas of white snow blanketing the meadows.  It is like a python, wrapping around and smothering.  Winter is a cruel beast.  She paces around through the mighty oak, hickory and maples, looking for ways to hurt and harm, nipping off buds of trees that took the warm weather to heart.

Winter is a cruel beast, there is no real warmth in her.

Cold Night

Cold night has come
Deep purple
Stars thrown out
All over the sky.
Not chilly
But bone cold
Standin' the hair
Up on the neck cold
Like a wild animal tryin'
To bush out his coat
Cold.

Washtub Concert

The winter rain
Falls quiet
On a day
That is too warm
For snow.
In the place
Winter white
There is mud
Brown and dull
Dead leaves
Sodden mud
Everywhere
Denigrates
The sterile beauty
Of winter.

Yet under
My porch
Drops of water
Fall through
Cracks
Planks
And play
A merry
Percussion
On metal
Washtubs
Laid upside down.
Plink dink
Plink plunk.

Gossamer Laser

A single strand
Of spider web
Pulled tight
Between two trees
Holding them in place.
Like a gossamer laser
It shines
Glistens
As it twirls
And is hit
By glancing
Sun rays.

Bittersweet Dreams

My recent dreams
Are not of
A Christmas
White with snow.
Nor are they filled
With sugarplums
Dancin' in my head.
I do not drift
In wonderlands
Filled with costly things
As I sleep
As I dream.
My dreams instead
Take me back
To an easier time
Simpler place.
An old log house
Shotgun kitchen
Mice runnin' in the walls.
The sound of Aunts
Through walls and doors
Movin', cookin', talkin' low
The smell of coffee
Boiled strong an' black
Biscuits light as air
Hand cut bacon
Piles of eggs
Preserves sweet an' thick.
These dreams take me back
An' as I sleep
Tears fall on my face.
For even as I sleep
I know
This is a place,
A time
A memory
Where I can no longer go.