Too cold to walk outside, I walk
snow broken windows
thick white ice
the purple flesh of palisade and stone.
In the distance,
the waterfall lets go of its breath
until it too cannot move.
Only the great evergreens by the foothills swim.
Wind and discomfort,
barbwire,
the white of evil’s eye
crossing shadow with pain.
The livestock fed,
a cord of wood at the backdoor,
a path pressed into memory,
and I pause—
Who knows cold as well as I,
great threads of wind,
drifts and more drifts,
naked trees dressed for the formal dance
and no one waiting their turn by the wall,
no one saddened or worried,
no one thinking of terrible things to come:
everywhere a garden of white blossoms lowering.
| Copyright © 2022 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
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