we claw through brittle days
upon calloused hands
hearts chiseled into Celtic swords
yet we hold on-
hunkering down through
blistering nights,
trudging beneath
the frosted moon,
awakening at mottled dawn, sleep deprived,
riddled with a profound ache
for distant fairy stories
we will not surrender
to shrieking banshees,
to long-stemmed loneliness,
to prevailing hunger,
to our minds' mischiefs fretting
as shadows in
unforgiving hours
instead we galvanize as druids,
extracting golden amber
from faraway dreams
depositing them as seeds stowed
beneath winter's cloak-
lore keepers
of pandemic secrets
-until spring
thaws the frozen river beds
of our poetic fingers
pollinating speech
while we spawn
into garnet roses
(blood soaked with piecing stems)
a reawakening of voracious beauty,
the roaring Aslan,
unmuzzled prophesier
of breaking dawn
In these dark days, we will persevere until the coming of daybreak.