Disclaimer: Um, characters belong to the mouse! This was written for aravah for a potc_votes Secret Santa. A wintry poem featuring Jack,Will,Elizabeth, and William Turner the Third...

What Snow Knows

I once tickled the nose of Jack, who with dark brown eyes
gazed up with wonder at the grey London skies
Who slipped away on a sloop with sails
Running from hunger and many ails

He ran to a place where I could not fall
To find treasure and riches, but most of all
He wished for freedom, hope, and life
I heard tales he embraced a pirate's strife

I once danced with the child of wealthy Weatherby
A spirited Elizabeth who snuck where she should not be
She gathered me in her smooth, young, hands
Whispered she would soon be in warmer lands

When next I saw her years had past
She'd grown more pretty than when I saw her last
But her joy had stilled and I could sense a chill
Guilt and sorrow had made her ill

I once played with a boy named Will and his mother
Heard their laughter and love for each other
When fingers were tired, numb, and red
They retreated inside and warmed instead

The next winter I wanted to play
But the boy's mother was sick that day,
that day and the next, and the one after that,
until one day I fell and alone the boy sat

Once I made another child gasp
Before he tightened his grasp
Of a strong ,black, ornate, chest he held dear
He knew it's importance to the one he wished near

This child was the most fortunate of them all
He never had hunger come to call
His mother spun him tales of hope
The pirate Jack brought worldly scope,

Once I danced and played with all four,
The pirate who once wished for more,
The girl now grown and glad
Her son no longer wished for his dad

The fourth was the father who could stay
And hug his boy close-once again he could play
None of them sighed, sorrowed or cried
Until mother demanded they go inside