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

owl asleep

and another atom strikes me

in the eye and out the ear

into the night and as silent

a high ceiling sealed in cirrus signs

inviscid transparent a hasty blind

patterns fool with curves and lines

who is true and knows their mind

so well as an owl perched peers

down on an extent black waste mired

still would differentiate a mouse and deer

those recognized are admired

each a schema or constituent  

rising from an organ clear

set away in asleep would we

chop chop

breaking splinters between fingers

filaments ripped undefined grain

curliest oak straight cuts interrupt

a fine swing makes the steel sing

an atmosphere piled here in tumult

then neatly then reduced into thin air

oil is jet black

look at how the axle is frozen

taking on a mocking attitude

and even snapped in two

still stuck and even stepped on

again and again desperate means

hammers and composite toes

loosening the reins

obits

here I am way out here where

so far out west that they

drown in grain

if marching in 

one by one

how long will it take?

black walnuts

the earth is just a lump with lumps

where the squirrels have hidden nuts

now steps turn up nothing but dust

do you recall looking me in the eye

through a lens and row of lashes fine

confiding these finds to our spot

and didn't the promise keep true

not me and not you

know which is and which is not

each stumble not more than a hunch

on calcium

behind the ivory gates

a hollow tongue wastes

time carving an alcove

all pretty arcs and domes

open and home to noon

sonorous radiant stained

the same coffee shade

sun occluded by our haze

water tables

look at the rocks in the rain

the moss is green again

the lichens grey and the again

the rest are red needles

rows of lines scattered under pines

november is still slippery 

just the same as is always

otters are in the lost swamp