Winter

like a clock of sunrises,
somewhat cloud muzzled,
winter comes, spreading her cape
of dead plants and twigs,
birds in droves
of pippery, and deep
fallows. the core of me slows
to a crevasse, a whisper,
not even wind in this
valley. the only snow's
inside, but that's enough:
to be wiped clean to nubs,
nibbled by those
who aren't fully asleep--
and slumbering in the slow breath
of those who are.

a time of bedazzlement
if sun peaks through to the smile in me.
but mostly blackness wombs me
in winter.
winter rings
the almost full moon
in a circle of light, a glowsphere miles out
from her fresh gaze, accentuating the fathomless
blanks of space.
deep in clearing the heart
of me, that deep in
these moonportals of cold white
embalm the night in me.
these inner snow flurries
this cold
winter.