Approaching Solstice

The old gods sleep.
Crows of winter
flit in desperate blackness
over the frozen breath
of frosted fields.
Their jagged caws
promise nothing.
December grips.
The world is an ice moon.
The old gods
snore and snuffle.
The dead planet creeps
toward frigid equilibrium.
No promises remain to keep.
The rimy fowl croak
again and again,
nothing, nothing, nothing.
The sun has decamped.
Gelid slumber holds dominion;
waking, but a memory
in an arctic head.
The old gods sleep on.
  - mce