You may be the one that darkness calls friend

The bringer of gloom, who draws curtains on the room

But to me, you are both beginning and end

 

You close the door on Autumn’s warm glow

Make coats button up tight, as you turn down the lights

And freeze dew drops wherever you stroll

 

They say you give us so few reasons to cheer

Put no food on the table, work and schools you disable

Your cold scent of death many do fear

 

But what of cobwebs frozen in a twinkling haze?

Of Holly bright red, snowdrops waking in their beds

And dazzling migrants flying here to stay?

 

As we walk, we hear snow crumple underfoot

Like cotton wool it crunches, as we head for pub lunches

Where flickering fires powder hearths with black soot

 

See children catching flakes on their tongues

On hillsides they slide, having made makeshift rides

As big kids play games with radio songs

 

And surely you are the harbinger of Spring?

All her secrets you keep, tucked up safely in the deep

The cold in her nostrils is the alarm clock you ring.

 

As a season you are the one most maligned

You make some fly away, praying for summer days

But every season has a reason and a rhyme