February snow has so much to prove. Like a spawning salmon in a dry riverbed, a teenager inhaling his first drag race, a sunbeam in a tornado’s eye. Drifts deceive and no one delights in the falling.
Black trunks blur grey
late winter camouflage
concealing spring
The tracks left by the fighting bucks are covered now and there’s nothing left but a half-buried broken antler. They were fighting alone; there must have been a doe close by but she faded into the greyblackwhite forest and now her tracks are covered, too.
Inside, bannock wafts
comfort up the stairs
what is burning?
I cast my eyes for beauty but all they snag is white: white caught on grey, on black, caught on white. Cotton white powder still drifting, slanting bitter on sharp wind, proving its force to the creeping presence of spring.
Soon there will be leaves
greensilver in the breeze
but not today
Today it’s snowing again still and eyes must rest in monochrome. The shades of gray are too punishing to discern differences of darkness, liminalities of light.
