Legends Fade Poem by Kevin Maroney

winter winds winding down,
whip one with barely a sound,
to flay the skin and make it rough,
yet also helping, hidden, to make it tough.
Scales form where the gale sheds,
harder than steel, not longer red,
to make it easy to withstand the blast,
and hold ever more, harder fast.
Frosting web, a spider crawls
across your reaching carapace scrawled
as if from some old maiden's fiddle,
dance a deathly waltz, right down the middle.
Dew formed never lasts, as the sun comes into contact,
it creams the forest through the dawn,
and in fire begins to fade,
just as do those purest glades.
In truth, the sun, a misty frond,
begins to open in the dawn,
and there loses its grace, its flower Crete,
and legends grown cease to be.