Winter Memories

The farmer said 'twill rain again for sure
And dykes and drains were full in Annagloor
And river gray to brown was flowing bank high
And northern winds howled in the wintery sky.

And sun has not been seen for many a day
And cows in sheds are bellowing for hay
And birds feasted on crumbs by the back door
Swept out by housewife when she swept the floor.

In leafless wood the chirping of redwing
They will be many miles away by spring
By march the migrants will be homeward bound
To raise their young far from their wintering ground.

And hungry rooks cawed on the sycamore
And darkness came early around half past four
A high of five to minus five degrees
And all night long the wind howled in the trees.

In january spring seemed a distant dream
And dipper silent by the flooded stream
And even daisy nowhere to be found
And snow on Clara and the hills around.

Some bards and poets have only wrote of spring
And leafy woods where nesting songbirds sing
And grassy fields and hedgerows cloaked in green
And only things of beauty they have seen.

But I have seen the fields frostbit and gray
And heard hungry sheep bleat on a winter's day
And I have seen poor songthrush by hedgerow
Her little body lifeless on the snow.

The river flowed bank high through Annagloor
And farmer said 'twill rain again for sure
And hungry birds don't have a song to sing
And sixty days till the first breath of spring.