This Winter Scene

The sky a dome of silver, has
clamped itself tightly over the
late afternoon arras of mid-winter
woods where silence has muffled
the chastened pathways of hushed
furred-creature presence. And then,
shattering that silence like the
ripples of a placid lake reacting
to a stone flung by a careless
hand, the percussive, shrill call
of a Pileated woodpecker sharply
reverberates on the stillness.

A pair of crows, wings spread
black, scissoring the frozen tree line,
silently observes small creatures
of the forest scurrying and foraging
among the white humped ghosts
of summer's tree stumps, transformed
by winter snowfalls to sturdy sentries.
Three robins, breasts ruddy and
bright against the prevalent white,
fly from bough to naked branch
seeking seeds and berries, sleek and
fat, oblivious of failed migration.