For The Sunday Muse prompt #78. Image copyright Erik Johansson.

***
Stroke by stroke these
words, hewn by force, as though from
resistant rock are building a shelter,
each one a link to a thought and then
a world beating back the clouds which loom,
a slowly growing splash of colour
holding out against the ashen night without.
These words are calling the trees,
to stand in defiance against the howling wind
and the ground, now covered with frost, to cling
to life, through the night, because
tomorrow comes, and with beginning again.