Friendship’s Winter

admittance of failure and malfeasance
was beyond the limits
of his personal responsibility
all fault flowed from sources extraneous
to himself
acceptance for all what went well however
could be laid at his door
all that was with the world and right
was within him
all that was with the world and wrong
was without him
for no problem was there
that the finger could not be directed
an accusation yoked
gently but firmly
to the shoulders of another
whoever was convenient
the nearest at hand
a loved one, a trusted confidant, a child
to what end this may fall is uncertain
but a short Fall is a guarantee
the love, the trust
the heroic father-like presence
becomes a frozen, dark, wind-blasted waste
when the artifice of fair weather
warmth, sunshine, gentle breeze
loses all structural integrity
and collapses in a loose pile
of hungry
picked clean bones
white as the snow that buries them