Whips of cutting cold

criss-cross my frozen nose.

Hood up, eyes squinting

I plod on against Mother Nature’s

coldhearted will.

Flakes land softly,

blanketing the dead grass of midwinter

with a pristine coat of blank page.

A single figure mars this expanse of icy white,

an ink blot on a page filled with nothing

but empty ideas.

Tracks steadily stir the surface of silence,

crunches creating cavernous canyon cracks

across a canvas of purity.

Rooftops, trees and chimneys

all dress in white for the occasion.

All bear silent witness

to the wedding of stillness and earth.

Standing straight and solemn

rigid ranks of pine

watch this lonely black figure,

with a coat dark as the deepest winter night sky

heavenly bright snow being

the perfect frame of violent contrast.

It is obvious I am no

welcome guest

for every step

I must fight 100 battles

against soldiers of snow and frozen gusts.

Swords with blades of ice assault my eyes, nose

and frostbitten fingertips,

no worse day to forget a pair of gloves.

The cold brings pain,

casting my defeated figure to the snow,

cradling close claws of hands frozen in place

by Gaia’s ill will.

I fight to my feet,

for every step foreward

is one towards home and hearth,

where the warmth of a decade of summers

awaits in hot chocolate and the arms of family.