The drape of blue, green vines
that hung and fell with beads of water perfume
of birds and flowers long since bloomed
Chilly winds lift feathery fronds
of red and rust on autumn ponds.
A shadow of summer
where sandhill cranes have flown.
A fallow field hazy in its gold and brown
stiff blades and grain that brace the cold
Alas snowflakes
soft as feathers falling down.
Early in the dark hours
where no birds have flown
before the flicker and hum of stars
silence where daylight sweeps away
the cold occluded moon
amid barren velvet white
stands a silhouette of trees
iced and caked in winter.
In this park there are birds atop ice cakes
stiff mittened kids, cold nosed and half froze
they slide on paths of glass, toward home.
A small stream cuts through this place,
black water, humming with coots and ducks.
Long toothed icicles waiting to impale the earth,
beneath our feet, we crack and shatter tiny frozen ponds,
revealing muddied blades of grass, green as in summer.
A myriad of birds in the sun, come to puff and quiver,
but soon the mountain clouds will come to shroud
the day, the sky, so cold, a frost in grey and silver.
These winter trees
cold and shouldering winds
their bending branches unhinge
falling limbs crash and break the snow
further still a secret world of mud and bulbs
that in the spring blooms of tulips and violet mossy lawns
and too, the sun that comes to warm and fills with green the tree arms
this wooded home that breathes with sheltering birdsong.