Winter Poem by Martin Ward

Winter wears a bridal gown
that rustles crisp with
hoar frost down.

Virgin breath stalks in stealth,
the frigid, frozen
air itself.

Icy fingers fail to clasp,
with tingling tendons
burning grasp.

Silence, palpable as noise,
rings burning ears
to hear its voice.

Ominous in battleship grey,
skies humble to hedgerows
of whiter array.

Stars weld to empty icy fields
that turn their backs
of ridged-sod steel.

This season like Lazarus lies,
awaiting Spring
to cry 'arise'.

As if in sleepy assignation;
not dead, but slumbering
in stop-frame animation.