White Snow Falling without Wind
(Thanksgiving Day, Foss River Grove)
shylight on my window,
dead season in the loom.
flakes smear
on the river rocks, drown
in the river:
born of the cold,
living cold, dying
of a little warmth.
*
my behindscenes
beetle-on-its-back grief
waves its arms
digging a grave
in the air.
where did it come from?
from birthwails
merelimbs,
a mother's grimace
breaking the ice of her face?
*
go down to the river:
a last salmon,
white-blotched, starved,
flits over the buried eggs
as if zipping them up
for the winter.
dark customer
die like the others?
the elements
ruin over her head.
I would not be her, not
for anything, but for her
love of the eggs.
Structure
34 lines · 6 stanzas