Winter Song

A fen is a land of the cold. Frost
is not only a solid - it hangs,
powder-hard, above the dark earth bed -
I was born from these water flats, fused
in all but fire. I have never burned 
the way wood can - I am not the char
of a wasted bough, I do not catch;
I am soaked through, fertile for green moss
and black moss - and then peat frozen firm.
And what wet dark earth expects the fire
to find it? Harlequin, where you dance
I am grown - unbound by frost, I bloom.
____________________
A fen is a land of the cold. Frost
is not only a solid - it hangs,
powder-hard, above the dark earth bed -
I was born from these water flats, fused
in all but fire. I have never burned 
the way wood can - I am not the charr
of a hollowed bough, I do not catch;
I am soaked through, fertile for green moss
and black moss - and then peat frozen firm.
And what wet dark earth expects the fire
to find it? Harlequin, where you dance
I am grown - unbound by frost, I bloom.
For Sam.