Alchemic Verse

Crystal blankets heavy
Cold cover winter’s bones
Both the dead and sleeping
The living and the stone

Powder sharply shimmers
Sleeves trees with crooked arms
Clothing naked nature
Concealing manmade harm

Ash and bone
Hidden price
Scourge of fire
Shroud of ice

Cloud did layer deeply
The filth of land below
Beneath the purest veil
Of leaden ice and snow

And where horizon meets
The mirror glaze of white
Sunfire burns the edges
Before day dies to night

Sky and earth
Virtue and vice
Kiss of fire
Lips of ice

Frozen footsteps heavy
Their weight the drifts will bear
Wanderer snowblinded
Devoid of thought or prayer

Watches light departing
Dull crystal to cut glass
Cold and smooth as porcelain
Yet strong and sharp as axe

Thrill to threat
Shifting twice
Forge of fire
Steel of ice

Dunes in moon’s reflection
Devoid of daylight’s sheen
Hostile in the darkness
Trip wanderer between

Quaking steps to shelter
Warn loss of body’s heat
Frostbite threatens fingers
Life’s fire flirts defeat

Until dawn
And sun’s rise
Fist of fire
Face of ice