Valentine
Woods
Breathing in
warm air
we have
not much to
do.
The cat does
nothing
with us—the purring,
the snowfall,
the warm
hot glance
of tea.
We glide
twofold
across the
page
across the flames
all the way
from town
all the way
into our own
devices.
We conceal
our inner selves
with separate
work
and languid self adoration.
The squirrel
doesn't know
what we do
sitting in
mid-climb,
wondering, laughing,
stripping acorns
down to dark tiny
shells on the snow,
spilling
its own kind
of
chuckling and brokenness
into fur and
winter
living.
Tiny puffed flakes
of snow lace
drift
like an eider's gentle sighs
as if plucked gently
from a
warm white breast of
earthy sky come down
to cover us
under our
own gray.
We make our
way
at home
complaining
in the quiet
bustle,
the
leaking
of our lungs
into
this heavy
sky, the aching
rows of trees
full
of
waiting, the
mindful
explanation
of a lonely
young moon.
This we almost overlook
as another
chance
to break and
move
from the
idleness
like our cold
creek
who starts to
emerge
from under
its own
white curves
with
an offer to surrender,
to contemplate,
to speak to the
stark white silence,
melting.
