Silently

Silently, cresting the blue bowl
of the sky, the snow goose
spreads wide its wings
loftily gliding in its
mundane ecstasy of flight
this mid-November day.

Well below, sturdy masts
of gnarled old pines stir in the
prevailing, insistent wind.
In the depths of the woods
stir creatures of the wild.

An owl, unperturbed or
deliberately unmindful of
anguished, irate shrieks of hawks
the racketing of mobbing crows.
He roosts, in a tree crook
master of surveillance
to swoop when he cares to
upon un-vigilant mice, hare,
voles and birds not of his
distinguished feather.

Oblivious to the riotous drama
woodpeckers clank lustily
on trunks of spruce, pine, fir.
The lunatic peal of the Pileated
rents the atmosphere.

Signalling arrival of dark
scudding clouds obliterating
the wavering, late-afternoon
sun. Soon, ice pellets strike
against the landscape.
The chattering of nuthatches,
chickadees, waver, then still.

The lion of winter testing his
imminent arras. The season resists,
damping winter's ardour. Sleet
turned to innocuous rain,
thrilling the primeval moulds,
mosses, lichens and ferns.

Look, there - on the forest floor
a body, swiftly decaying.
Its red breast and sadly
dishevelled feathers a mass
of compost to enrich the
leaf-dense, richly damp earth.
Tardy migration has its price.