The Riverbank, Late Winter: Living North

A lined calendar of empty trees 
turns the cold 
consolable. Even light this dim 
is an invitation. 
Evasions indoors have kept you 
from the descending order of shadow: 
river-walks that change 
meaning . . . today a decoding 
of sorrows and of seasons, 
calling back births and celebrations 
that began them, giving form 
to this need to be mute. 
And if you resist the rumor 
that winter is a bad time for humans, 
            perhaps what’s plain in dormancy and cold 
will sprout the small, joyful detail 
            on its way to decay: the lime-tipped willow 
brittle in this freeze 
where the mind is drawn to mist 
rising from the black of river water, 
and the diligent senses can briefly 
go blank 
with the fresh force of stones 
showing through an ice trace 
all those cushioned vowels in the snow.