Oh, sweet, quiet, morn

To what are we born ...

There's a stillness in air

And no traffic to bear ...



Birds are under cover

One lone squirrel buffers

Between ground and trees

With nuts clenched in teeth



Cold breezes are missing

Even though frost is dissing

Freezing breath below nose

Icing up so much it shows



Hearing the crackling now

As heat warms up the brow 

And icicles caught up in nostrils

Eventually, become old fossils



Oh, quiet and cold morning

A bittersweetness is dawning

The bright stillness is an omen

Of a greater frost now roaming



Storms to cause an icier glazing

Are promised here by day's end

And the quietness will be supplanted

By icy cold winds so disenchanted ...



- Tristram



© Christopher W. Thomas

8:57am Saturday, Jan. 2nd, 1999