And Winter Comes Again Poem by David Whalen

The spicy condimental smell
Of crushed Autumn leaves
Faint distant cries
As from damned souls
Whisper from the trees

Skeletal limbs…in gelid winds
Grasping desperately
For things they cannot see
And spirits unconsigned
To either heaven or hell
Roam earth eternally

The lead ochre gleam
Of frozen stream
Hard and spare as flint
Light crystal path
with winter’s gleam
Imbued with glacial glint

Winds with razored
edges keen
Shave shapeless drifts
To ghostly forms
Spare and mean

Gives souls pause
To shrink and shrivel
In fond membrance of summer
And then
Commence into acquiescence
to icy caresses
And surrenders to winter
again