Winter's Arms

Remnants of dreams lie scattered shards  
Like the hoar frost hard upon the yard  

***  
 
I seek the solice of Winter’s arms for my dreams have all fallen as autumn leaves  
Which now lie brittle and muddied on the ground…and the frost, it comes.  
The morning air hangs heavy, a white mist before my face  
And cold the air within my lungs  
As the clutch of hope that dreams should die  
Within my heart…and cold.  
 
And cold the wind which swirls amid branches  
Naked and reaching…  
...For what?  
Heavenward?  
In invocation or benediction  
Or grasping at the ghosts of dreams adrift  
On the breeze where leaves no longer swirl?  
Do trees dream of the greens of spring or the fires of autumn’s leaves?  
 
The air is clear and still except for the sound of my breath  
Loud in the silence,  
As if confined,  
or weighed down…  
I long for whiteness to cloak the ground  
and drift away from the wind  
As bulwarks for more consequential things.  
 
Embraced in winter’s arms past mistakes forgot  
Dreams that sleep through icy blow  
And hopes as different as snowflakes fall  
And brush against my face and eyes  
To run like tears  
And freeze again to crust the snow  
For nature turns against the warmth, when things grow cold ~  
As dying hopes that litter empty dreams and color gone, all is white…  
All is white as the solice of Winter’s arms  
The cold embrace that chills, then numbs, then cradles in the false warmth of sleep  
For winter’s not giving but takes  
‘Specially in the seasons of the heart  
 
And I wish to make angels in the snow  
As if angelic sentinals of unanswered prayers  
Prayers as dreams  
Or hopes  
White's now all I know.  
For I dream of neither fires or green…  
And alone beneath the greying skies  
Hopes lie naked as the trees.