There is a dragon within the wind
whose bite cuts straight to the trembling bone,
and though no wounds remain aft to mend,
the bite lingers, still, like seeds deep sown.
The dragon seeks with its pallid eye
heartbeats by hearth, by fire, those warm lives
that flee from it as it roams nearby,
its keen unseen teeth like icy knives.
The backcloth sky is but harsh white wool
through which the bleak, blank sun often glows
cold, far-off, like a corpselight of Yule
when the biting air swells up and blows.
We are scorned by that distant-drawn sun
for yesterday’s oft ungrateful cheer,
our Summer arrogance now undone
by the Yule dragon’s icicle sneer.
Elder-aged, now, I lay all alone
in this Yuletide season of the cold
and try to sleep, but I toss and groan,
wondering how I became so old.
The dragon snorts, then groans, too, and sighs,
and licks at me through a frosted crack;
will I survive till the dragon dies,
just long enough for Spring to come back?
Tangleroot And Tressknot 