Season's Flux

There is no spring thunder

Nor flower;

But above the maples

A wild minstrelsy of geese goes by,

And in the lower woods a black bear spent the night,

Pawing log after log,

Eating the skunk cabbage

From left to right

Of his now mired tracks.

There is no spring thunder

Nor flower;

But there is a maplewood full of crows,

And a poky shuffle of raindrops.

THE BLIZZARD

All day high cirrus have swept to the west,

And deer had to strike and tap at the lake;

In the thin air black shards of hills and brown choked fields

Lay in the rigor of death.

Out of a deadly sky, blue-fanged,