You tossed a mantle made of frost across the earth; gilt
crook and crease
Each common twig and sprig transformed into a perfect masterpiece
Each fringe and frond etched or ensconced in diamond-studded
mezzotint
And we are lost in worlds unfurled with here a swirl and
there a glint
You steal our breath; the seal of death is something that
none can revoke
Yet wakes in us an ache that started with the first words
that you spoke
And since the dawn of time we climb the aftermath of ‘let
there be’
To be wowed by a cloud, a shroud of stars, a frost-flossed
tree
…a rolling sea of seasons as it woos us with its ebb and
surge
Where we are drawn from dawn-to-dawn in a marriage of
laud and dirge
As the carriage of dust-to-dust turns wanderlust to
sacred awe
For we begin to taste the winning haste of Numbered Day’s
Established Law
By the time we reckon this rhyme we’ll both we nearer
than before
To the farewell that rends this shell with that which was
and is no more
Where now nature still thunders with wonder’s unequivocal
Sire
He tossed a mantle made of frost across the earth; gilt
sprig and spire
© Janet Martin
