Thread: Winter 2007.

Title: Why an old man digs in the cold

Last Winter was unusually cold. It snowed hard and the sky was thick white.
After work some friends and I walked home. We drank hot chocolate.
At the end of our road we turned together and saw an old man standing at his window.

He was pale and gaunt, his cheeks were caved, and his skin dry.
He opened his window wide, and we saw he was thin and crying.
He said his animals had died, that he'd left them in the cold.

He kept their cold bodies in his lounge until the snow stopped,
and then he dug into the earth, pressing down hard to break the silver crust.
I went into my garden to hear the spade glinting off the thick ice.

I heard him shovelling into the night. And then the silence of his three corpses.
I imagined that the upended dirt he meant to return was solid and crystallised.
I see those bodies covered in loose diamonds, and him despairing.

wow, reading this evokes emotion...it is very descriptive... great write...in my opinion

Really nice imagery there. really enjoyed that. ifI had one thing to pick it would be that you describe his skin as dry: this kinda conflicts ith the description of the cod, and the snow, and the fact that he's been crying. Asides from that very good