Retrospective
In Winter
The acre shines white and cold.
The sky is lonely and immense.
Jackdaws circle over the pond
And hunters climb down from the forest.
A silence dwells in black treetops.
Firelight flits from the huts.
Sometimes a sleigh rings far away
And slowly the gray moon rises.
Gently a deer bleeds to death at the field's edge
And ravens splash in bloody gutters.
The reeds tremble yellow and upraised.
Frost, smoke, a step in the empty grove.
© Jim Doss & Werner Schmitt
