Christmas offering, with apologies

The chilled air stretched
cautiously under his wife.
One by one, shades

Pass boldly, full glory
of passion wither
locked heart lover's

eyes. Generous tears:
such a feeling thickly
partial, young, standing

under a dripping tree.
Other forms were near.
His soul where dwell

the vast hosts of the dead,
wayward and flickering
out into impalpable dissolving.

Light taps upon the pane:
sleepily the flakes, silver
oblique against time.

Yes, snow on every
part: plain, hills, westward,
mutinous waves falling

upon the lonely, the crooked
the spears, the barren swooned
falling faintly and faintly falling,

like the descent
of their last upon
all the living.