Thursday, January 31, 2013

Poem for 1/31/13

Seen from a Window

A Window in a bare
Wall, where glass is covered with beads
Of Ice like gleaming freckles,
Obscuring my view of the world
Beyond. 

Outside are framed trees,
Unmoving, Stripped of their green
Leaf-coverings. Patches
Of dry, brown leaves still cling
Stubbornly.

Now in sight: blotches of gray-green
Lichen, hugging crooked trunks, boughs,
Small branches up to spindly finger-
Tips. Yesterday’s snow is in a tree’s arms and around
Her feet. 

A Raven alights on a branch
Near me.  His movement loosens snow.
Like a waterfall it sifts to the ground. The Raven
Dances in the tree, his beak opening, closing.
He is still. 

Past him, a mountain,
Gray and blue, touches the sky, Curving,
Partially seen. The sky floats
Beyond the web of tree branches, little
Windows.

Sudden color
Shocks gray. A flag from behind a trunk,
Shows white, blue and red unfurling. It waves
And stripes ripple while stars peek at me. It returns
To resting.

A splotch of black moves again: the Raven.
He jumps to a higher branch, wings spreading,
Snow dislodged.  He turns in circles, leaps
Into the air, flies off right and out of
The frame

Of the Window. 

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