Winter wind

The blizzard hisses wildly in the woods;
A lonely warrior walks softly in the winter.
Ice crushes lightly under leather boots.
An arrow hit him in the arm; there pokes a splinter.

The snow is trampled by the soldier’s heel,
It beats against his eyes and gathers in his beard,
It flies into his sheath and chills his steel,
It sticks to red stains on his clothes that blood has smeared.

And he recalls the battles, won and lost,
While freezing air sets lungs of his ablaze with fire.
His beard grows white with flakes of snow and frost.
He has no food or water, and his life is dire.

A trail of blood is following his step,
He starts to hear voices of his fallen kin;
Between him and the spirits is a gap,
But with each step he takes that gap grows yet more thin.

His pain is strong, he falls, lets out a gasp.
The wind blows fiercely and wildly in a gust.
He lets go of the life he cannot grasp…
Time is eternal, and it grinds us all to dust.