[icythaco]

Note: This is a sonnet (fourteen lines in iambic pentameter), so excuse the Shakspear-esque language. Some of you free-form poets might not like its traditional style.

Upon a Bleak December

The frozen land with all its bulk doth sleep,
And through its cold bones blows the sighing wind.
Above the chill-ed 'scape the hea'ens do weep,
Below, cold creatures ponder season's end.

The sky of raven's cloak, so cold it seems
A crystal tunnel, mirr'ring dark-wrought light,
Within which lies a path to spectral dreams,
Whose frozen count'nence echoes winter's night.

And woven 'midst this shadowed tapestry,
Are'a thousand points of night chilled lanterns' glow,
Like ic-ed candles, set 'twixt frost-lit sky,
Their frozen flames 'cross glaz-ed contours flow.

But wi'in this ice-plagued tundra there doth loom
The threat of time-scorched knife, and winter's doom...