The ‘Icecoming’

Tall-shaders shed each frail
productive sensitive extension,
exposed-extremities
(except those pin-ends
– protected for retention),
red bird-beads decorate (beak-pecks),
and cased dry-snacks for winter dearth;
inside, down-under cosy earth
trumpet-onions – inedible – wait,
chip-shop-tubers,
nightsight-taproots
– orange glow below;
hedges glitter with diamond-lace,
and soon minute crystal-patterns
begin to film the window-pane,
and floating feather-rain
forms soft, milk-counterpane,            
a bush-tailed rodent descends, and searches,
hunts out the cache it stashed;

when warmth once more approaches,
from earth the live-spikes poke
and scaled-knobs on the shaders-tall crack open –
to spread the beauty-cloak,
the active-cover over
to green the land again.

[Poetry Monthly: use/invent  ‘kennings’]