Winter of Discontent

R.M. Dolin, 2013

Predawn shadows hang over the deserted
field like an impatient Executioner
who's not necessarily eager for the task at hand,
just anxious to be done.  Wind dances
along the stark stubble wondering where life and
beauty have fled.  Broken stalks, like pipes in an organ,
create a crescendo response to Coyote’s mischievous serenade.

Inside men sit serious, eyes fixed on an unspeakable future
that does more to address the challenge
than any discussion to follow. 
For a nation,
for its people,
for the serious men who sit in silence,
the winter of discontent has arrived;
bearing down with the intense ferocity 
of a high mountain storm
scraping across the long-abandoned tomorrow.