The Land In Winter

Like an enchantress of ancient legend
Nature herself has thrown a veil of 
surpassing beauty on the world, an
all-enveloping skein of falling snow,
gossamer-slight and iridescent white
to softly muff the winter landscape,
so comforting that no sound is heard
as the forest rests in its winter slumber
of renewal. The waterway weeping
across the forest floor is stilled and
tranquil, its surface a glassy floor of
ice, masked by new-fallen snow. There,
an opening in the ice, and there, the
trail of an emerged muskrat, tail
trailing in the luxury of snow. And wait!
There is sound behind snowy boughs
where a nuthatch shares haven with a
flock of chickadees trailing the trunk
of a spruce, flicking from branch to branch.
From a far off distance another sound,
piercing yet dim, haunting the white
miracle as the whistle of a train clarifies
its ghostly journey over a hidden track.