Hourglass Decembers

Two days, eleven months in the year.
There’s frost on the sun
And sun in the breeze
Hold tight to the warmth you hold so dear-
There’s death in the windblown trees.

(And I feel like as the leaves pass by,
We’re sitting, waiting just to die,
Our faces pale in mirrored light of concrete statues wondering why.)

Eight months eight days and nights in the year.
There’s fire in the clouds
And ash in the moon
Like storm in the eyes of the child brigadier,
There’s life in the dream-lit tune.

(And I feel as when the ice grows faint,
We’re fading like the summer paint,
Our hands still shaking with the guilt of water colours we will taint.)

A month or twenty days in the year.
There’s gray in the grass,
And green disinclined.
There’s dusk in the taciturn cold of the fear,
With snow on my withered mind.

(And I feel, despite the torpid sea,
Our hands might clasp occasionally,
And even though the sun is cold we’ll walk, contented just to be.)

Four months or five not quite in the year,
With song in a hand
And hand on the sky.
Allow a glint of hope to appear
For Spring is the last good-bye.

(And I feel like through the rain and snow,
The death and growth, we sometimes know
That statues smile, and paintings dry, the light returns, the waters flow.)