Twenty below, and tulips unfolded
for such sun flowing through glass

as though tulips were all.

*

On the snow, the notion of trees
rested in blue shadow.

*

I found absence on a lake:
an island whose snow showed

no footsteps.

*

Where the ice was restless
against the shore, a pool

of blackest water,

and within, much darker still,
the numinous eye of an otter.

*

Snow on bare branches buried
the shadows

until the wind
set them free.

*

The pine bowed, burdened
with snow, but for one green branch

floating in the sunlight.

*

On a still morning when air
had no more substance than the spaces

between the stars, night’s last breath
was a blue mist that lingered

upon the lake’s white breast.