Morning dawn clear and cold as icicles
sublimating vapor into dry air.
Winter reaps all life with frozen sickles,
and like grass, lies cut by the swinging shear.
Sun beats on skin polished by wind and frost.
Squirrel hides in the blizzard’s sediment,
well aware — if hawk sees him— he is lost.
Yet who can resist this carpet lambent,
upon which afternoon plays like horses
gamboling and whickering in tall grass?
Fragile streams arise from covert sources
where warmed ground meets snow. Ice oozes like glass,
and winds open rifts, or pile up dunes,
that show spring’s triumph, more sure than runes.

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