Winter Hills (Poetry)

Where once they sprawled, hills huddle, cold and brooding,
their lazing, sun-soaked days long-disappeared,
the scowling sky looms purple-browed and aching,
and grey mist clings, possessive, loathe to clear.

Deep winter hugs the lone track on the hilltop,
wraps every rock and tree in its embrace,
frost kisses stone and wood, enthralls the valley,
seduces water, sculpts the high crag’s face.

Ice daggers hang, blades shimmering and bloodless —
they drip and freeze and drip, then freeze once more —
the narrow path is lost beneath the whiteness,
the stream locked in behind a glassy door.

Tall spears of grass stand brittle, sheathed in crystal,
their living blades immoveable, grown numb —
there is no wind to free them from enchantment,
the hand of winter struck and left them dumb.

Snow silences a land in hibernation —
its breathing faint, its pulse a buried beat,
and, chilled to a pure state of contemplation,
the captive hills long for the sun’s first heat.