Friedrich’s ‘Winter Landscape’
by P.H. Wise

Almost lost amidst an icy land
An old man sits beneath the Cross in prayer
His crutches lie forgotten close at hand
Scarcely visible through dark, snow-clouded air

His hands are frail and shivering with cold
His old sesquipedalian prayers have ceased
He is too old to pray at his fellows
His hope and his despair have drawn too near.

In the winter of his life,
The winter of the world unheeded
He prays before the figure of the dying God,
Hoping desperately
to share in the spring to come.

(based on the painting, Friedrich’s ‘Winter Landscape’)