Winter's Child (Poetry)

The cold consumed her — ate her from within
and carved its crystal colours on her skin —
her eyes like frozen lakes fringed round with grey
as shadows claimed her — sucked all warmth away.

Orphan-thin she wandered through the gloom —
brittle as lost summer’s withered bloom —
her hair a nest as frail as thistledown —
across her forehead etched a wistful frown.

Her ghostly form wrapped in a ragged shawl
like spiders’ webs hung frosted — showing all
her winter bruises — purple veins like threads
dark against the hemline’s frigid edge.

On she travelled through the long night’s chill —
she left an ache the silence failed to fill
and footprints on the path — each shallow dent
a parting clue to tell the way she went.

Her shawl was found discarded once the melt
revealed it when — for kindness — someone knelt
and lifted one wet fragment — slow — in dread
they’s find her bones — some trace of her now dead.

They discovered nothing but the perfect gleam
of a white bell — a wraith amongst the green —
cruel Winter’s child reborn and thriving where
a snowdrop braved the New Year’s bitter air.