I.
The wind today stole all the joy of life—
set marrow trembling in these aging bones,
found all she sought with her hungry knife,
filled every hidden hollow with her moans.
There was no escaping from her grip—
she cut and cut till I emerged from stone.
I arrived at journey’s end strafed and stripped,
riddled through with air and light, undone.
II.
The lake’s face is all jagged white caps:
clarity only achieved on the coldest
days, thin wind scouring the sky,
a faint curved winter moon quiet
as a forgotten scar—it seems to shift,
appears now here, now there.
Bone-bare limbs of trees, dull and resigned,
can’t compare to the urgent beauty
of brittle beaks, sharp wingtips
of gulls drifting, shocked still, on the water—
wind lifting and lowering them
while fish dive deeper underneath.
III.
I lean into the gale because
I know this secret: in the death
of winter when trees brace themselves
against blasts that shatter the sky,
they are secretly composing
the white poems that months later
they will cup in greening hands.
