
From the north the killing force arrives
Winter stars extinguished from the sky
Arctic wind spreads death across the plains
Cold gray hands embalming every vein
Of all the nights fate chooses this bleak night
To birth a beast into the cruelest plight
Lying there in shock and bare extreme
From safe warm womb to freezing misery
Suffering. Struggling. Trembling tightly curled
In roaring gale his feeble bleats unheard
Accepting this as only newborns can
A fight for life within death’s crushing hand
A flaw in nature, logic might suggest
Bringing life into a night like this
Where grizzled bison bawl with primal fear
A cold this country hasn’t seen in years
The eldest know the only way to hide
Lie still and let it bury you alive
Short and shallow panting through the nose
Lungs will ache wheezing frothy foam
The dim gray dawn brings forth an abstract sight
Monsters rising slowly from the ice
Mother beckons babe to try and stand
He wobbles up and falls back down again
The thirsty herd begins to walk away
She nudges him to try and stand again
She knows if left alone there’s little time
Wolves have quite the taste for left behinds
He tries again but one leg has gone lame
The foot half froze will never be the same
With healthy legs a trial this act would be
The scrapper slowly rises on just three
Finally up and sucking warm white life
Muzzle thrusting drinking with delight
Standing strong this little tripod form
Quite the fighter is our winterborn
The lessons of the killing months are learned
Within his supple mind the cold is burned
His temperament imprinted from the herd
Less playful, more quiet and reserved
He learns to taste the air for hint of steam
Rising from the flowing saving spring
He notes the first warm brush of southern wind
The scent of side-oats written deep within
Some calves are born in summer, most in spring
They play their first few days in waves of green
Thin and tender skin of little strife
Biting flies their greatest strain of life
But now and then a birth in winter months
Brought forth on the far side of the sun
And these rare few, often stunted souls
Flaws in nature, reason might propose
But nature always proves her methods sound
To every glitch she gives a work around
A strength for every curse she often deeds
As tempered steel doused in great extreme
Behold the scrapper now a massive beast
Out in front, standing in the lead
To cold and thirst his herd may soon succumb
The ceaseless storm has drove them lost and numb
He turns his head his nostrils twitch and flare
Tasting every atom in the air
Testing ice-dried wind for wisps of wet
Taking any hope that he can get
He starts one way then makes a gentle veer
A thousand beasts trusting where he steers
A mile wide trail of hoof churned earth and snow
The rumbling crunching mass of mammals go
To liquid life and maybe winter grass
Today the fate of death they’ll just slip past
And death recalls this beast with gimpy gate
The one that long ago somehow escaped
This one from whom death took the stinging jilt
Who rose up on three legs to reach his milk
Then grew to fight and earn his rightful claim
This quiet beast the winter wind has named
——
Some are born in summer, some in spring
Spending sunny days in love and ease
Tender skins as young ones ought to have
Spirits on the smooth and well-lit path
If you are a soul that fate has cursed
That winter winds have buried deep in hurt
Left for dead trembling cold and lame
Perhaps a greater purpose calls your name
You might just be the one that nature formed
To lead the hurting masses through their storms
The one that death regards with seething scorn
The mighty one the wind calls Winterborn