The Seven Despairs of Winter
Millie Gould
(Walsall)
The first despair of winter
Is the mournful welcome
Of sharp, icicle teeth, searching for prey –
A lake captured, silently,
Its spirit trapped
By the murderous ice.
The second despair
Is the deep hollowness
Of the empty, bleak, winter scene, lonely and distraught,
Happy smiles killed,
Once warm hearts
Now frozen.
And the third despair
Is the mournful welcome
Of the crisp crunch of snow, like shattered glass,
Cutting into the innocent flesh,
Crushing your emotions flat,
Sunken into sorrow.
The fourth despair
Is the misconception of the snow,
Thinking it’s a warm huddle of cotton wool, but it being a deadly spell.
Then the air freezes
Into a blank canvas
No painter could ever express.
And the fifth despair
Is the mournful welcome
Of dismal clouds, and the slow goodbye of faint sunlight,
The darkness coming
Buttoning up the light
In funeral black.
And the sixth despair
Is the drained feeling,
The mocking of your spirit by children’s angels in the snow.
The merry screams of darkness
As the evening draws in,
All jet black.
And the seventh sorrow
Is the mournful welcome
Of the night, as the moon rises and lets the souls free,
As the year packs its bags
Ready to hibernate –
We let the earth rest.