“In the bleak mid-winter

  Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

  Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

  Snow on snow,

In the bleak mid-winter

  Long ago.”

The return of winter,

During Winter:

As we slept

It snowed eight inches.

Eight inches.

Enough to obliterate

The grass, starting to green.

I dreamt

Of being abandoned–

And woke to find

you’d been up since 4 am.

The House was warm,

As if the furnace

Had suddenly become efficient.

Too efficient, I thought,

As I watched the light

Gradually increase outside.

You see, there was no sun.

Not in this bleak mid-winter.

You’d say it was white,

But I’d say it was gray–

A tinge of darkness–

The unknown, like a fog

Near the barn.

The aspen,

Its white body–

elegant and erotic–

Naked in the snow,

Stripped completely bare

And framed by the fog–

Was so still.

Yes, it was still as death.

A corpse,

And, if it had started to dream,

It dreamt no more–

Unless, it too dreamt of being abandoned.