A Copse of trees stand tight
Huddled like frightened beasts against the cold of night,
Wild wolves in the wind snapping at their
bonelike limbs
The hunger of cold, biting and old
Thrum out like the very first hymns

The stars linger this morning,

Caught frozen between grass blades

Uneager to relinquish the long night,

They shimmer brilliantly in the golden morning light

The line of confused winter birds
Wash across the crisp blue sky
As the breaking line of a wave against the shore,
Pushing on, morning song
Flying as high as the day is long

The morning unfolds itself like a poem
First, a softening,
- realisation of cold -
And then,
        the promise of gold

Golden Sunlight unfolds herself from the cracks of the frozen earth
Like silk, her fingers warm and soft against my cheek

She stands herself gracefully from among the glittering frost,
Tending to the falling and calling for the lost

She softens the scrape of black trees against the thin skin of the sky
And offers forgiveness from the endless nightly cry

When we as loveless humans failed,
With hate in every word exhaled
We turned and let our gods all crash,
we turned our children into ash.
.
And from out the ashes crawled
A thousand demons, wide and tall
Roiling mud and blood and stench
Tore out from groaning wound-like trench
.
And then down from the sun there flew
(not too many nor too few)
A band of angels, a golden choir
Singing songs of purging fire
.
And at the end of battle-day
In the fields of war there lay
No liars, beggars, thiefs or knaves
But a thousand crying naked babes

Sunlight wrapped in chains of gold
The days are short, the nights are cold
Amid dark spots, dark thoughts, light rain
You use your sweetness to sour my name