Silence, there, where the snow has crystallized,
closing the world to footsteps, tyres on tarmac
flap of towel or sheet on washing line
A sad refrain whispering in the rain’s furtive whine
Once-green spaces magically transformed,
Strange silhouettes, the once familiar trees
Now stand mute sentry in swift polar’d grounds
Where the shining dead men’s diamonds lie scattered all around
In a dark, unsheltered, corner of the park
Where rhododendrons threw squat shadows on the ground
The dead man lay, seeing nothing now through sleet swept eyes
In death he claimed the dead men’s diamonds as a shroud
‘Though his pockets were empty,
His final meal, not the prisoner’s extravagant last request
But a single cup of tea, over-brewed
And a single sandwich, unappetizing, far from fresh
His name to be just a memory on some faded certificate
The frost his shroud, a kindness done by death
For those who his body found
There, where the dead men’s diamonds lie
strewn in derision by skeletal jeweler’s fingers of frost upon the unyielding ground