Ode to Winter

The frost makes firm the icy lake,
The samara twigs do break off;
The deer and rabbit prints of late
In the snow are made by paws.
The blackbirds sing their songs
And the bear do sleep at ease.
Love is burrowed in the fields
Where some creatures there do sleep.
The insects are all in the ground
And in peace, the trees art bare, surround.

No great thing disturbs me now
As winter is in her hoary home.
The furnace burns, and makes a fire
Keep it stoked at perfect coals.
Great harrowing war echoes there
And great sorrows the people have;
They are actors in great halls
And I feel that I am mad.
For I cannot but see them all.

Their faces are so stiff;
Pleasures are also dried.
I walk along the silvery path
And say, "LORD make me ever wise."
I cry to Him for pleasures true
As the lake whoops so divine.
The foolish of this world do skate
Upon thin ice to see.
That they are fools, but I, but I,
Am the fool of fools indeed.

For Trumpets blast in silence,
And the greatest are made small.
Petulant sinners are so dense
And the leaves do blossom wrong.
In the dead of winter, I at a green leaf pause.
"Why did they not listen? And why were they all false?"
Yet, the rabbit tracks and deer like hooves
Make a satyr print, I find.
The brother deer do lick the ice
And the squirrels there do pine.

And as I walk through this brave new world
I say, "It is not mine and never were."
For the great man wants to steal the prize
And the doctor wants there to be no cure.
Men say "Fascist" in the night,
But both sides are so obscure.
I wish this song were just 'bout winter
But, like Orwell I must be weird.
So, the whooping lake, no preternatural song;
I know 'tis not ghosts and choks.

©2026 B. K. Neifert
All Rights Reserved