Yahara Winter

"It may be that the hour is snow
seeming never to settle not
even to be cold now slipping..."
– W.S. Merwin










This morning I awoke
and knew I didn't have to look out the window
to see that the world
had slowed down
by the great new folded drapery
of snow
It was not a dream that there were no cars
for just this hour
and the only sound
was that imagined tinkle
of each flake
falling down silent as cut cloth
and finding its song
the flowing river
to hear again
not the bus drone but the crisp squeak
of childrens' boots as they slowly
punched down into the inches
of the sidewalk
When I walked outside
it was the trees along the river
that held their tongues
they did not speak
they did not want to
and greeted the curl of fog that lifted
up over the mouth of the Yahara River
as the old breath
of passengers who paddled across the lake
you could not see
their story and speech
disappearing