The River in Winter

The river is serious and wide at the hips.
Her progeny, now lofty clouds, are fat
from feasting on her waters.
She takes on their blackish, granite hue
as though to acquiesce and turns into
a sheet of pallid flow.
At her banks, the naked trees have lost their coloring.
They shed their warmer days when the leaves
fell like golden flakes.
In the towns, around her bends, people scurry
to and fro, the hellish cold toying with them,
amused by their curious puffs of smoke.
The fervent promises of summer suns
lie scattered, frozen along her edges,
their truths now dead or dying.