January Thaw

Rooftops lofted under three-foot
snow comforters, snuggled in for
the duration; ice and snow-slush
gilding silvery winter roadways steeped 
in winter's frozen depths.  A raging 
wind lifts sheets of light crystals, veiling
the atmosphere in a diaphanous sheet 
of ectoplasm as frigid air grudgingly 
surrenders to milder intrusions and a 
temperature inversion transforms the 
pristine gleam of white to meltwater 
trickling steadily off roofs, awaiting night 
to freeze again, a brittle layer of ice.
In the woods, trees nod under the
weight of layers of snow glued to
boughs and trunks, ghostly apparitions
bearing no resemblance to the green
articulation of the growing season.  
Soon, great clods of snow thump off those
towering limbs, splaying onto the
forest floor, creating an artist's version
of the frozen Arctic in melt mode.
Boughs and branches, supple still,
spring free from prostate grovelling
before the weight of winter's 
imposition, in this brief thaw.