my winter poem from assignment 11/18/08

Waiting

It's easy to know that when the horizon blackens,

something new is on the way, a dream rinsed

in yesterday's black mood. The sun spins away like a mad kite,

its light a shattered wine glass on the hearth. 

How can we mend visions of fuchsia and heather

when there is less and less, not a crumb to gather

for the table? And what of the plot to bury the yard

in shrouds of white? What witch cast that spell here?

What moth ate all the leaves we planted? Stay deaf and dumb,

wait for the sky to open again, to cast its bluest eye

on the yard again, to rouse the seeds that sleep now. Wait

as the bird waits on her egg. It is a season of windows.

Hear the nothing of falling snow. Wait. Watch the sky.