Did winter come

Did winter come

Stealing in through cracks

In the firmament

Where the heavens

Are leavened in preparation

Of morning

Did its icy tendrils

Creep into the bedroom

Crystallizing dreams

That otherwise would

Drift into obscurity

At sunrise

Did the rain fall

Washing away the dust of sleep

Chasing out the cobwebs

Saturating garden chairs

That should have been removed

Until springtime

Did winter come

In all its searing majesty

Its keen crisp air

Sharply driven

Razored in its knife-edged

Severity

Piercing deeply through

The weft of fitted bricks

And mortar

Carpeting the garden

In whitened splendour

Did winter come

Once this way

When nobody was looking

And leave its mark

Upon the world

With a barely whetted appetite

For more

Before retreating

Behind snow-capped barricades

Frozen in perpetuity

An ice palace

As elegiac as any sad

Northwind blown hall

Lacking any sense of

Warmth

Or the benefit of humour

Did winter come

Once this way

And if it did, why

Did I not see it?