When ash strikes the sodden earth,
Autumn begets a cardinal's croon.
When creatures slumber in winter's crest,
Beneath the cloak of night does a forest
Feel the ice-borne chill and north wind's plight.
You breathe white smoke and cradle
Frozen dewdrops within your lungs, and
Upon that soured tongue you would find
The scorching heat in your veins to be frail.
Rather brittle is your spine and burning are
Your hands in spite of the season forthcoming,
Eyes like splintered moonlight weaving through
The weary dawnbreak, your silent muse fractured.
Akin to hail on the window, the storm's cries
Will cause the glass to shudder like a windswept
Bracket of thorns on a painter's wavering brush.
The bristling of fur and flocking of feathers,
Gilded scales and sandpaper skin lay waste
Unto the morning sun, a sweeping of dust upon
A quiet, yearning moor in the song of nature.
As the plumes of starlight unveiled in the frosted,
Auburn woods seek shelter in the cloak of night,
Lurking in shadows ever-shrewd, you run into
The temple of a midnight hour upon waking.
When you run like a flock of birds with fickle wings,
As if there's some truth in that grand, gnarled thing,
You breathe life into the winds of all the rot laid bare.
When your quill or brush takes the reign of passage,
You beget to hold nature's first breath alongside your own.