When Summer Comes (a winter poem)

Crisp

Is calmness

In the still evening air.

Frosty mornings

Whitening windscreens

Of freezing cars

And birds and beasts

Scrabbling outback

Grateful for the nuts

Scattered .

And the still evening air

Misting light

From street lamps.

Fallen leaves lie

Before barefaced trees,

Crisp or damp,

Golden brown or mushy black,

As the thin moon sheds watery light

On a pale black sky

Days of weak wispy sunlight

Forcing rays from distant embers

Of a summer sun,

Barely warm

But bright enough to raise a smile,

As the cold gasps in your throat

And condensation follows words from your mouth

Like a trailing puff of smoke

From an old steam train

As winter dawns

With rain, sometimes

And sun as soft as snow

The hats and scarves of children playing

And the sparkling of the stars

In an empty sky

Say peace to all mankind.

And those that miss all this

And destroy the peace

Will never see the light

When summer comes.