Winter River

Tardy migrants, geese yet
ride the darkly frigid river,
resistant to the slowly
gathering surface icing
creeping from its contiguity
with the snow-filtered banks
above. The sky a vast pewtered
panorama, snow is in the offing
even as the early winter
afternoon sun glows 
imperiously, insistently yet
in vain through the curtain
of an opaque atmosphere. A 
clutch of crows flies in dark 
silhouette across the arras.