Yahara Winter

"The moon, though slight, was moon enough to show
On every tree a bucket with a lid,
And on black ground a bear-skin rug of snow."
– Frost, "Evening in a Sugar Orchard"









It's easier to tell the stories of what you miss.
As the nights draw down to degrees below zero
you then wake, look out the frosted window
and although the sunrise shines you resist

the same plans of the soft yellow summer,
of taking your daily walk along the Yahara,
the hike up over the pine limestone cliffs
or follow butterflies along the prairie at Curtis.

The winter months turn the mind's eye within.
A soft music there we hope tells us what we love.
We are not so much but half ourselves.
The other, warm earth, long gone, again.