Late February
A small path
stippled with the print
of wind slurries,
it runs along a snowy edge,
scrub-oak nails down
tilting stumps of ice.
How old must the year become
before a cockled bark
sheds its wind-blighted hide?
The creek is a stretch;
I tread through a sleet blurred flurry,
zag a rooted track to its frigid bank.
Standing by the water, crow wings
flying form my black overcoat,
I watch a flotilla of ducks
pilot a channel through small ice floes.
Then the ducks disappear; we disappear together
as a hard mist crashes-in.
I hear the creaking of tree-hung clouds,
the crunch of frost-bitten shoots,
a grinding of raw jaw bones,
on sapless sprigs.
Only my hot breath pushes
through a clearing of sky -
all has returned with tints of sunlight.
Saplings are carried by blackened limbs
toward lichenous openings.
And is that a greening moss -
is that a young crocus leaf reaching?
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