on making ice

the air trapped between layers

oval and lenticular below jagged

crystalline minutes timing

a slow drain a liquid pulling

the glacier here is erratic

as the meter is wild

so too is the hand

on making ice

the ice is forming nicely

feet all a glide arms held up

high and wide and all smiles

right now a pebbled surface

sufficient for say curling

what is needed is a zambeaver

with a little hat and a big cigar

plying a smooth flat trail

in the cold one is prone to dream

out of the periphery of thorn trees 

floats down the overture 

pyoter ilyich tchaikovksy

what a name but then i remember

how he just ripped off that other

little lion wolfgang amadeus  mozart

who wrote the ball first 

divertimento nr ten f-dur 

kv two hundred fourty seven

and then I slip and slide 

and go back inside

find my seat by the fire

beans

Me?  Oh I'm just cooking beans.

Beans. Beans. Beans.

Isn't that what Plato said?  

Plato said Beans are the Key

To a Wonderful Life? 

No. Plato said I'm Just 

Cooking Beans

The scholars misinterpret

everything but the beans

 

cold starts

a peak festooned berm miniature cascades

and then the yard silent and bright

hard at first then into crumbles

spilling into shoes filling wetting socks

frigid feet fuss before the stove

holding the door for the fire

light needs to breathe to live

warmth doesn't have to wait 

before the glass seated heated

radiant beams feeling knees

on the back of south bay

the edges of the river recede in this wind

rocks bared like teeth the bite of an island

breathing in the aching cold

we lace up and take a face off

obscene and dirty mitts

the ice is cloud colooured

tapping sticks for somewhere to drown

eyes blind to the inevitable

skating til my lungs taste of blood

the flight

the disturbed vision of the owl searching for

a one branch among the pine trunks 

blue leaking sap stark black

the snow white the brown turned head

who sees me here all on my own

taking careful steps to the ice ledge

feeling the cold boiling each breath

one of us is mostly vapour

one of us neatly coalesced 

taking off taking time to find certainty