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Wintertime

Wintertime

The night ice oozes thickly through the blood.

Frost crumbles leaves; the reeds stand hard as spears.

The hills are silent, fleeced with snow. An owl

is watching, still as stone, for prey; the old

man dreams, his skull all echoes with the sound

of closing doors; his bony feet lie white,

and cold as the roots of leafless trees. Night

is all; no gleam or moonbeam lights the ground.

Deep in his bed the old man grabs a hold

of the sheet. The night beasts snuffle; they prowl

the dark beyond his door. And then, no fears:

the night ice oozes thickly through the blood.