A grey-white weave of winter clouds
now herringbones the sunken sky.
In barren fields clad thick with snow
a string of fallen fence posts lie.

Whatever birds once flew before
have fled the trees, have disappeared
because the Arctic blasts and chill
is what these creatures truly feared.

Since Sol's been cloaked by dormant clouds,
backcountry air's spit-freezing cold.
Ice cracks and topples brittle limbs
on to snow-crusted wind-swept wold.

Too stark, too bleak for man or beast,
this is a heartless winter day
that chills one to his very soul,
so cold it's chased all life away.