Hibernation

This is a silence
This a closing in
This the perpetual hum, the wearing
Of cold
This body is oldening

I have seen those doors
Close one by one
Heavy with pelts I am
Sustaining cores of being -
I breathe on 
Those small red coals
That make me 
Who I am but I am
Coldening

The heart has bled
To white, to a cold bright numbing
Needles of ice at the back of the skull
Those quick incisions
That implacable blade
Dripped
My cuts of frost are tightening

It is 
From this yielding dark
All dues are paid -
This is the master plan
This the silence, the closing in
The realm of pain where
Warmths are fleeing

The oncoming dark
The effacing freeze, the place
Where still black leagues harden
Into glacial silence -
This blurring oblivion
Of winter is
Pure elemental ice.

I am loosening
I am lost
My coals are black and cold
I drift within a dream, I am
A fretted pane that cannot
See past winter's hand, I am



Trusting in these 
Slow subterranean moves of clime
And circumstance rolling
Through my body's being, my sore
Mind.  On my numb hands
I notice the first light dusting
Of snow.  It is time.

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