December New Moon Sonnet

Hail, bright crescent, sharpened with whetstone-breeze
for harvesting every last branch and bloom.
Cold-hearted, you cut the gathering gloom,
and slay every beast still taking his ease,
who was still unprepared at winter’s tease:
first ice-crust on lake-shore, and cricket’s doom,
egg-sac dangling in spider’s old loom.
Geese pay no mind to rambling Aries.
Ants protect their queen in the deepest holes,
Mouse stitches quilts of beech leaf, birch and grass,
Sparrows seize the sky from robin and wren.
Where are the chipmunks, the rabbits and moles?
Maple sinks in, waits for winter to pass,
and spring’s green return to meadow and fen.

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