The grass sways with the sickly yellow face
of an invalid longing for the sun,
laid up with a fever in a room laced
with ice, lest the patient’s heart start to run.
The healthy green of summer has been drained
and the heavens have donned the mournful drapes
of that deep sleep which can never be feigned.
Surely winter kills life with steady scrapes
of white claws? Must we wait for the spring thaw
for life to again bubble from the earth?
Or perhaps the grass sways with suppressed mirth
from the sudden sound of the crow’s guffaw.
Winter covers all with a cold embrace,
but death purges all without any trace.
