early Sunday past Ashday

Harvey S. Mozolak

forty below and falling

freezing purple skin

turning black

Lent like the coldest hour 

before the dawn

is winter’s last scream

“more darkness!”

death dragging down

clawing by cold clay

the warmth of God

cooling in the thin woods

through which Roman soldiers ride

amid crushing cursing shouts

like slapping pendants proclaiming

an ice kingdom that will never melt

the hidden horizon in the east

has other things to declare

if only a thin outline of gray

dust furrowed buried on the brow

the forehead of a hill

announcing the coming of the Lord’s day