Winter’s Frozen Sunlight

by Steve Thompson
(Methuen,Ma USA)

Standing in shallow white…the dark feels the ice of December…

Mindless the wind blows the browned leaves into a dirge…

And when the sun arrives …dreams smile in the frost…

They know where to form…and how cold warm ideas can be…



And the squirrels genuflect to the sun..for the nuts they seek…

As the blue jays steal to the sky…

In spite of them both…the old cat sleeps in the windowsill…

And the fire in the stove…still smokes too much…



The pines in the bog behind us…tower over all…

Green arms reaching out to the vast frigid nowhere…

As the giant pine-cones… release… as unexpected depth charges…

To the Eskimo like rabbits scattering below…



Where shall the winter stone wall end…or begin…it cages snow in…

And those massive oaks… why don’t they bend?

don’t they know….white is their friend?

Sunlight walks to dusk…time…shortened now…

the winter clock unwinds…