Snow on the Firs (Poetry)

They rear up huge against the grey horizon —
snowmonsters with a multitude of claws
hooking the thin-stretched swirls of air
shrugging off shoulder-rounding clumps of snow
as branches rid themselves of layered weight —
the ice uniform too frilled and cumbersome —
slowing down their rippling flex and sway.

Small flocks of birds hover like lost midges
exiled and unsure if or where they might perch
in the frozen density of unrecognisable limbs
and still snow falls from a sky that looks so bored
that it drizzles a chill dust upon its giants
from the dull-vaulted yawn of its ceiling.

Patient, as the light fades even dimmer
the firs shiver in a silence bounced between
the leaders of their ancient army stopped in their tracks
pinned down by the winter’s calculated strategy
that overwhelms by numbers — the tiny flakes
that swarm and swarm uncounted and uncountable —
smother in an all-embracing thrall.