It’s winter: 4 a.m.
Steam rises from the gutters, the ditches, and drains
Eerily, eerily from the evening rains
Whirring sounds of speeding cars
Under the dim light of fading stars
Making their way scarcely unawares

It’s winter: 6 a.m.
Buses creep and creek down the narrow streets

It’s winter: dawn
The clouds are no longer camouflaged by the black of morning nor the black of night

It’s winter: Noon
The clouds that appear to be strolling
Are actually rushing and rolling
With no sign that they are slowing

It’s winter: 3 p.m.
The winds are whipping, the air is nipping
And the white sun half-extinguished is slipping-slipping back from whence he’d come

It’s winter: 5 p.m.
No light in the east, little light in the west
The night is falling

It’s 3 a.m.
The grounds are misted
And the landscape twisted by the drenching fog

It’s winter: 4 a.m.
Steam rises from the gutter, the ditchs, and drains
Eerily, eerily from the evening rains
Whirring sounds of speeding cars
Under the dim light of fading stars
Making their way scarcely unawares

Today is spring
But it’s all the same
Always the same
In the somber city
The perpetual grimace stays