Silent Night

by fabian cortez

Crystal liquid drops

Affect an icy

Demeanour as they

Trace a path

To firmament

From above

-

How refreshing it

Is to my awaiting

Taste as I look

Up to cotton haze

Open jawed

& Eager

-

Nothing matters,

But inspiration

From such mercurial

Magnificence, as a

Cascade of colours

Highlight everything

They touch

-

Removing momentarily

Their other purpose

I’m weak, but emblazoned,

So lucky to have a chance

To see this miracle

Amongst so much death,

Yet, I cannot trivialise

Such beauty

-

I reflect how once, I would have

As, I feel my strength

Waning faster, & my head slips

Sideways, I see my friend

Spattered intermittently

With bullet wounds

Volleyed crimson

Against this

Bounty

-

Christmas armistice

Slowed this pantomime

Of slaughter either side,

I hear a distant singing of carols

In praise to God & Christ,

My legs have no feeling

Now, as a rat crawls over me

In my entrenched narrow

Mud casket amongst

My comrades

-

Here there is only peace

& quiet, amid the

Barbed wire & Snow,

I can barely feel it resting

About my face now

I sense death’s claws

All about me, I do not mind

Somehow it all seems

Quite normal, inevitable,

Even

-

I wonder if I the stories

They tell

Are true…

copyright©2005 fabian cortez