Poem: Snow falls on the suburban plain

Here is a poem that I will before too long include in a collection titled Dr Cogito’s Rebellion.

Snow falls on the suburban plain.
I shelter, wrapped in a library of wool.
The prophecies of last winter
Stand unproven before me.

Was the doom of governments so sure?
Did the blood-dimm’d tide swell and fall
On the innocence of the world?
Who, if anyone, escaped the burning of books?

Ashamed of error, I dismiss my men
To walk stooped and love-shorn
To the silent shore of the undreamt world
Where I cast my runes again.

Who is Zarathustra with no omens?
Who will heed my hammered song?
As snow turns sleet turns rain,
The runes speak only of pain.

Jeff Rich