Poem by Herb Kitson  

    Sun in Capricorn

The sun's a snowball somebody threw
          into the sky.
It reminds me it's December, cold,
that winter solstice began yesterday,
that calendar and weather both are old.

No one's tried to purchase summer now. 
The shopping cart is empty—plain to see.
It's all stark angularity,
the air smeared drab in black and gray.

Give it a fancy name
in French, no less,
call it Le Tableau Vide et Sans Couleur.
Call it sorrow, loss, absence, gloom.

Call it anything you like.  
You're painted from the picture.
There's nothing living to be seen.
Just  dirty white and solitude.

You've been shut out for years.
Ekphrastic challenge of bleak season
isn't hard to understand.
You're screwed.  You're outta paint.
It's difficult to change the scene. 

Life's rigid.
There's a track with no train—
no chance of going home,
no hope for getting warm.

About the Poet:
Herb Kitson is professor emeritus in English-University of Pittsburgh-Titusville-Pennsylvania-USA.  Poems of his in The Atlanta Review, Ballast, Comstock Review, New York Quarterly, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Poetry East, Rattle, Witness, Yankee, Pearl, et al. In print, he has two books  and two chapbooks.