exposure

Winter can come cracking stars,
blowing down all weathered doors,
shivering through the staggered denizens
of unsuspecting June. They don't know why
the sun is cold and why they were forsaken.

Old men trudge desperately toward the pond
in hopes the summer swan is there and thriving.
If she were flown all hopes would plunge to zero.

Rumor is afoot of Death and great shadows falling.
Laughter in the inn trembles now in wan corners,
wine lifting no spirits, warming only quiet shrugs.

Soon the news of dearth of swan and dreaming
hangs everywhere, like icicles twisting, mirroring
absence unto absence, distorting the Pole Star
into a candle flicker set beside a gravestone.

Darkness now of midday June seduces,
turning all to village idiots for celebration
of razor ice and the truest ripping wind.

All the mouths of huddled shapes are singing
a threnody of frozen joy, paradox and blizzard.

The time has come to form a single file,
to walk forever toward a truth of freezing.

Wrongest winter grins teeth of troll and harpie.
Night swallows itself, swallowing eyes of madness.

In the empty village now, swirl of dancing mist, no ghost.