-- Winter Wilderness --
By John Herlihy
Winter reigned supreme
The sun shone brightly
The clear air bristling cold
If it rained, it poured
If it was cold, it sleeted
The wind sounded its wolf howl
The day gloomy, slick ice galore
If it didn’t rain or sleet, it snowed
Blanketing the highland in blinding white
Like sleeping animals in hibernation
The icicles hung rigid – and low
Pretty in their own right, if chilling
As twilight descends rises the evening star
Giving the sky the look of another world
As the long day fades into darkness
The daylight dying a slow, certain death
More stars will enter the edge of night
Wearing the robes of the angels of light
If it didn’t snow, the wind blew
Blowing down from the north,
The North Wind born among wolves
Yes wolves, whose eyes burn like hot coals
Who knew how to howl at the moon
The spirit of the wind lies in wait
Groves of pine trees stand tall
Watching thru night as stately sentinels
Bedecked in the wedding dress of snow
The pine needles made of delicate lace
Their majestic tree limbs centuries old
Bending in praise to the whims of the wind
When it shone, the moonlight grim
Sunlight in its mirror reflection
In the pale glow of its borrowed light
Cold and desolate and ruined
Like an old man without any wisdom
Yet wise after all, in its telling phases
Winter doesn’t affect the quiet night
Instead, it lends a sense of solitude
The night as quiet as the night is dark
The night sky unbounded, without limits
The stars shine pathways into infinity
Its vision beyond the celestial horizon
The fire speaking in tongues of flame
Pulsing reds and yellows over white ash
A splash of sparks from blackened sticks
Speaking a crackling voice in the silence
The fire rising and falling in hypnotic dance
Casting blessed warmth over melting snow
Who wouldn’t want to be a nightbird
Free to soar beyond the clouds on high
Into the boundless depths of the night
No sun, just promenades and starways
Galaxies spiraling around a celestial core
Revealing the empty fulsomeness of infinity
- - - - - -
Copyright ©John Herlihy
Saturday 26 May 2023
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However, some of what you've written isn't about winter. It only rains during the onset of winter and in the spring when there are occasional snows because a cold front will come through warm humid weather, beginning as rain, but as it gets colder, turns to sleet, and eventually, snow where an ice coating on the ground or trees becomes covered with snow. Throughout most of the winter it is too cold to rain.
The reason there is winter at all is because the days grow shorter and the nights longer, making the cold of night overcome the warmth of summer sunshine. You have it reversed.
Ron