There is no escaping the mystery of days

There is no escaping the mystery of days

Everything comes and goes

A subtle exchange bound to the inevitable

An inextricable link

As the horns of old stags grow

Just to break away

So the winter days will fall as snow

Hilltops will be islands

Floating in the vale

Treetops will be skeletal limbs

Beckoning lost souls

Deeper into the maw

Of a hungry storm

The bleakest night will

Cede itself to morning

As cold white flakes continue to shift

And turn, leaving their residue

Lying languidly, in crystal mountains

Sparkling slyly

Stripping trees and sunburned bushes

Of their shrivelled rolled gold leaves.

Burnished riverbeds

Barely seen, in the constancy

Of repose

Lie beneath frosted water,

Icy lakes form pretty patterns

Stepping stones

Disguising their intent

Awaiting the foolish

The fissures held in readiness

For the unwary

Bent on skating freely

In denial of the danger

In spite of it, some might say.

And all the while, as snow falls

The winter slowly turns

Back into a pretty picture

Of old-world charm

And the mystery of days plays out

In faux pageantry

The truth of its destruction

The impurity of whitening

Hiding plainly in the shadow

Of its passing

Deeply drowned in sludge

After the flood

And before the making good.