a winter of the soul

Most birds have flown away
skies are gray,
and it's a cold wind
in which the trees sway

the tractor rusts in the shed
and the farmer rusts in bed;
the painter lays down his brush
from the poet there's only hush

The melancholy and the ill
(the poor and raw of hand)
know winter as the well cannot;
they feel the outer chill
and they know the inner rot

It is not a season of light
but of struggle in the night,
a time of taxes and the taxed,
for perservering...
or re-considering

And though we've seen
joys, troubles and seasons pass before,
such as are mortal
must see one winter more