Shivering Delight

The sky is generously dimpled and flocked
with layers of silver and white clouds,
nicely scalloped in a prize-winning design.
Nature takes a bow, on this winter day.
Some wag has taken bows of scarlet silk
and appended them to a few of the frozen
forest trees, a fey nod to Christmas-in-the-woods.
The denizens are not particularly amused,
however light the holiday mood, however.

The counterbalancing wind is sharply avid
in its icy probes, hungry to bite bare flesh.
The exquisite pain of its pointed, icy blasts
negating the peaceful beauty of the snow-capped
trees. Atop the dark, unadorned spire of a
long-dead pine sits the black figure of the
forest's cadaver care-taking contingent, its
beady eyes quick to identify interlopers.

Ferocious wind gusts in the upper atmosphere
part the clouds and shafts of sunlight beam
down sweetly on the forest floor, threading
between winter-bare boughs, illuminating the
crystalline snow, glowing generous light without one
scintilla of comforting warmth. Shivering delight.