Whispering wind is all that’s heard amongst the sleepy land so glum,
As powdered snow falls hastily, like dust of diamonds from the sky,
Contrasting shades of phantom darkness, brought about as dusk grows nigh;
The sealing of a solemn fate, is very soon to come…
It stings her ears with frosty breath, that frigid howling breeze.
Wincing from the biting gusts, at hands grown numb by cold,
She cradles in her tired arms a whimpering child, not that old.
She presses on –that weary girl–for fear that they shall freeze…
Against the sea of snow she wades, though weathered by the squall,
Blackness shrouds the land before her, beneath a somber sky of gray,
She glances upwards in distress, fearing what will come today.
In silent prayer she sloshes forward, holding tight her babe and shawl.
Against time she races incessantly, to escape her surely forlorn fate.
Like creeping specters in the night fatigue and weakness haunt her;
The blustery winds and swirling snow make seeing things a gray-white blur,
But still she stumbles onward, in worry that it’s getting late.
To a crooked tree amidst the wood she stops to rest a while,
Out of breath and beating heart, she slumps down on her knees,
She lays the babe amidst the snow, beneath the twisted tree.
“I’ll close my eyes for just a bit,” she whispered with a smile.
And so, she laid her head down and she gazed up at the moon.
While ice-cold tears of hopelessness streamed softly down her cheeks,
Exhaustion overtook her and she drifted fast asleep,
The powdered snow she made her bed had come to be her icy tomb.
Wrapped up in his tattered rags, the child whimpered in the snow,
To his mother he cried out, but to his rescue no one came,
And near him lay a grim reminder of how his fate is much the same.
Succumbed by sleep, he closed his eyes, and joined his mother’s tale of woe.
Copyright ©2011 Michael Althouse
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