The Dead of Winter

Withered and weak
Shivering in cold
She lies quite naked
In the cold winter snow.

Pine needles fall 'round
She stares at the trees
As they quiver and sway
in the icy cool breeze.

Shouldering guns, warm in their coats,
Hunters saw her, they ogled and stood.
Desperate, she whispered to the hunters 'kill me'.
But the young hunters, enchanted, never would.

Another walked by.
This one bold as brass.
His eyes bright as day,
with a tinged grey mustache.

'I know where you are.
I've felt how you do.
You wish to die;
I've been there too."

She stared at the man
Through a foggy cover;
Her frosty blue eyes
Had slowly glassed over.

She felt so old,
Though this man looks at least fifty.
her blue lips cracked open and whispered,
'Please, just kill me.'

He looked on with pity
And he unshouldered his gun.
She looked solemnly in his eyes
And there saw her first glimpse of sun.