Freezing Night Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

In the freezing night
of winter an old woman
bent under her age
and illness crawls

In her hand
she holds a cane
supporting her.

Slow
in the thin snow
she draws
herself

In the night
by midnight
only the owls
and nightingales
shudder.

Look! the woman
falls
blood from her nose
stain drop by drop
and slow
the white snow mantle.

And face upwards
unmoving
to the heavens
the aged woman stood
with open eyes.


Came pitying
owls and nightingale
a squirrel warmed her
a hedgehog guarded her

Yet
she moved mot
the old woman with the
cane
and she relinquished
the cane

Then
mourned the owls and
nightingales
the squirrel and the hedgehog

Alone
and suffering this Mother
born young and strong
fell in the snow
to fade

Yet the winds neigh her
name
and the leaves rustle
and from the eyes of
the Heavens a tear drops
of the old Mother:
and
yet the winds neigh her
centuries and years
years and centuries
and when rare snow falls
it bear rare drops of blood.
And the Heavens mourn
With broken heart
And the Heavens mourn
The hapless Mother.
The Heavens of the
Broken heart
The hapless Mother.
Mother!
Mother!