HARDENED ROAD

Where the flowers wilted, 
the grass was in early winter hay, 
the sky grey, signaling the 
oncoming cold, relentless and bold, 

no life left in a weathered shed, 
it could not survive another winter 
snowflakes to fall like a demolition's hand, 

but for now it still stands resilient and old 
what once was dusted now a hardened road, and a new season asks for a higher demand, upon the wind, upon a land, 

and it is there, just above the crest 
by numb fingers and labored breaths, 
trees, full in their colorful show, where 
morning still greets a rooster's crow. 

© 2017 Rene Velez