Ginkgo in winter,
robins looping all around,
sun setting silent.

Like buoyant notes found
with the greatest tenderness,
each tree snow-dusted.

Up with the streetlamp,
lighting the morning snowflakes
like an aurora.

Forest trees creaking,
one Carolina wren sings,
antlered deer walk through.

Sun wakes winter moss,
ice that will become spring pools
melts and reflects sky.

These snowy Sundays,
pulling meaning from blank skies,
solemn, leafless trees.

Starry-skinned mushrooms —
an orange constellation
shining under snow.

The color of trees,
first one deer, then the other,
leave tracks in the snow.

The first snow falling,
ribs and bones of trees revealed,
the nests abandoned.

Tender perfect things,
form and disappear, re-form,
beautiful, each time.

March snow is hardest,
I clear a place for the doves,
we all wait it out.

Catching the light,
moss striped with snow grows bright green,
warm under my hand.

The blue firmament,
blue as shadows cast by snow,
blue as turkey tails.

This beautiful land,
unforgiving as the moon,
grateful to walk it.

Mysterious life,
owls hoot from across the lake,
everything turns blue.

The evening path,
lined with trees that look like ink
in a cross-hatched field.

The sun finds its way
between tall velveted trees
coated with new snow.

Day after the storm,
doves nap on my balcony,
snow clings to branches.

Crows bob through the snow—
calls muffled like they’re swimming,
the sky made of waves.

We follow deer prints,
my dog’s nose fits perfectly
in each searching step.