this day was longer than the day before it late filtered sun on snow-laden trees winter is textural rime ice and powder everything built upon another cold pastiche this punched out step in a snowfield an irreversible mark sharp punctuation but not indelible this night this storm will erase it nothing lasts not even nothing
More North than home, this morning-still forest– dull today, awaiting more snow, more sky, more anything– a drowsy forest, half-sleeping under packed-down ice, still dirt where the sun breaks through, on some days, but not this one, no more day now than hours ago, barely more than night, the sun somewhere in its low arc, somewhere under these insulating clouds, very little moves, the lake comes as a surprise, so silent at its banks, even […]
The bend of a bird’s wing seemed so sharp, the guttural scrape of the snowplow clearing the road, but it couldn’t keep up with the sky and its act of forgetting, these relentless rounded edges, forgiving all, and always– The last snow walk before the drive back it was blowing down, so that the path erased itself, became new with every step and it was hard to return, to leave the banks that softened hard […]
White world, little distinction between ground and sky, even birds won’t brave the coldness. Yesterday I saw geese fall out over the shale lake, like lanterns, gold-bellied, backlit by a setting sun. The first Christmas without your call. Today is startling in its stillness, another thing has come and gone: Snow coats the road and yards, the mountains engulfed by clouds, so what else can we measure by besides a sense of gain, or loss?
You said you hear the coyotes more at night now, that deer traipse down the gully’s broken scree with inherent trepidation, their silence speaking for them as much as any yip or yowl. I miss the cold nights there when it’s so clear a halo rounds the moon, sharp air forcing awe from my ungrateful lungs. I miss the length of a northern winter night, with ample room for new and old fears, and how fresh […]
i. Morning snow is kind snow– clear sun, blue sky, where exactly does it come from? The best gifts have an air of mystery about them. ii. Last day– that gallows feel tempered by the brightness of the sun, care for flood warnings put off till tomorrow, maybe the rivers will recede by then. iii. At any given moment, a living thing is ahead or behind, I don’t think we are ever fully in one place, but jitter around a point in time […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 