Untitled Bruegel poem I.
Composed in response to The Gloomy Day (February) by Pieter Bruegel the elder.
Spindling black birch in a looming dense cluster,
gnarled as witches hands,
hacked in high winds, gathered in a bunch
as old ships are drowned and sunk
like runts in barrels,
peril worn in rolling skies, like worried mothers
or hunters, young, in the chase,
loose earth turned and drizzle-thickened
over wails of bleak gales, whistling shrill,
by flailing tides, long-failed masts;
a vale browning in darkening umber,
creeping like a grumbling omen, a frown narrowing.