January came in like a lion roaring
Madness in freezing sleet slithering
Down, around, over and under
Cocooning everything in its path.
A glazed panoramic ice world of Mother Nature's making.
Through the still, velvet night, the pop, pop, pop retort
Of snapping, cracking, felled trees littered the battlefield.
Down came the Kwanza cherry and the Bradford pear
Never to blossom again. The Japanese pine stands
Naked, stripped of its long, soft needles.
A quiet inferno, taking power lines, TV cable, throwing society
Back into the dark ages, primitively coping with silent technology.
Cold homes, new diets. Sequestered souls, alone, self-reliant,
Wondering when winter will end.