"Walk" they said.
"Walk until we tell you to stop."
And
we
are
still
walking . . .

Shivering, she hurriedly draws
the bedroom curtains,
catches her nail in the fabric
and curses her dying candle.  

Sarcastic concern echoes from the bathroom:  
“Are you alright, dear?”

She raises the finger in his general direction:
“Oh sure, I just love November power-cuts, don’t you?
Some romantic weekend this turned out to be!”

But there is no disguising the smell of fear.

Out in the backwoods
a loping presence sniffs the air,
and crunches ever nearer
over drifts of frost-rimed
fallen leaves.

Winter gives way to Spring,
life returns anew to the land,
and so the ages pass.

Deep within the Greenwood
a figure stirs beneath the mossy bole
of a venerable holly tree.

Melting ice falls glittering
from a fold of velvet.
A thin wind whispers in the whins.

Startled, a song-thrush flits wildly
over ragged brambles,
the dawn sun gleaming in his wide, black eyes.

It is time, once again,
for someone to re-awaken
the sleeping snowdrops.