Found This Day

Winter's Deep Heart

Nuthatches and chickadees
thawed from the night's brutal plunge
orchestrate above
in a paeon of homage
to Beethoven's Pastoral,
Hayden's Toy Symphony.

Composers' hubristic conceit
Nature's mocking deceit.

There is a gentle stillness
blanketing thick layers
of snow.
Our cleats bite deep
carrying us forward
onto this frozen, white landscape.

A slight breeze rattles
pale bronze, paper-beige
leaves of hornbeam and beech.

Bird-pricked and pale
Sumach candles
bittersweet berries
Hawthorne haws
illuminate the
black-on-white narrative
of winter's scape.

Snow lies thick
on the solid old limbs
of outstretched
apple trees. Pine,
spruce and fir shed
their white embroidery.

Our shadows twin us
as we lope along
under a bright midday sun.
Suddenly they plunge
deeply elongated
into a chasm
rejoin us on crossing the bridge.

From high above us
a red squirrel scolds
berating our trespass
the rash indignity
of our presence;
that of our two little dogs
padding alongside.

A pair of cardinals
blaze deeply
into a needle-lush pine
sublimely trilling
their defiance of
the deep heart of Winter.

Published this day on my consciousness
trekking the snowbound ravine. 2009.