“Winter Relapse” by Alan Mitchell
by admin | 4.28.10A solitary hawk beneath
a sky of lavender and gold,
assumed the vantage of a tree
and there reconnaissanced the cold.
Once-melting drifts of speckled snow
grew stiff against the freezing ground.
The humid gusts abandoned hope
and left the air without a sound.
What once was flowing now was tamed;
the rivulets, muddy and curled
lost strength and stream, as puddles became
glass windows to the underworld.
As April’s harbinger, the hawk
should sense the shifting of the sun.
A general in retreat would know
what day the winter war be won.
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Alan Mitchell has served on the AML board, and is the author of an award-winning novel, Angel of the Danube. He has recently started an LDS publishing company, Greenjacket Books (greenjacketbooks.com), and has a new book that expounds the global economic crisis in view of latter-day prophecy. He has served in numerous ward callings and currently as ward music leader. He ranches in the west desert of Utah, where he and his wife have been named 2008 Ranchers of the Year by the Society for Range Management.
*Contest entry*