Counterpoint

There is no fire in this night sky
nor even wan mirror-image
in the cloud-muffed night.
Everything hushed in the
muff of falling snow.

In the dark hush sounds
the rising wind, furious
at the storm's dalliance.

Through a tributary of the 
ice-sodden creek we trek snowshoed
then pause    arrested by
an inner sense of difference.

Grey ashes strewn in the
narrow defile barely seen in
the shadowings of trees
overhanging the creek banks.

Grey creeps through the
litter of snow. A sweep of
handheld branch and the sound
becomes live, a smouldering
bushfire; its incandescence

luminous, exciting the night
sending sparks exploring the air
vapours lazily rising
wafting the richness of pitch
to our frozen nostrils.