Yahara in Winter

"Last night
she
came,
livid,
night-blue,
wine-red:
the tempest
with her
hair of water..."  – Neruda, from "Ode to the Storm"




Oh, white glass
I see
across the street,
a tundra
of old trees
that I am used to
but the bark
of the north facing
slivered by snow,
how did you paint that
my friend?
By Wisconsin streets
in winter
we hold captive
by the compulsion
of the sun
as it is our only
diadem,
the glitter of a world
we know
but are not,
like children, allowed
to peruse
such a section of delight.
Neighbors now
scoot by
holding the tethered
handles
of their leashes
as if the spring has sprung,
as if that light
that coats
the river
and sorts out its folds
rendezvoused volume
had been sent
from a world
of solution,
a world that is cinder
and pure
which does not
know restraint.
Up there, a thousand
years away,
long ago beamed,
yellow molten
paint dab sun.
I walk up to the glass
case in my house,
and know not
what I have
done to deserve
the pattern
that reels in protest
against
the monotony
of dull gray winter.