Charles' Poem ~ 2

Silence Falls on Lamentation Mountain
by Charles Savage

The bell-like ringing

of our axes fades
and silence drifts

across the fallen snow.
As wearily we rest our careworn blades,
the campfire, too, has quietly burned low.

A sudden blast of wind, an icy breeze, stirs up
a sparkling glow from ebbing fire.

The frozen limbs in answer softly creak.
Their aging branches dance but start to tire.
My surly boots tramp down the darkening snow,
and mix it with fallen leaves and mire


to form a resting place beneath the boughs.

We are the dying ones that still can cling 
to life
abandoned by our fellow leaves
while we defy the silence that snows bring.