Nothing is more chilled
than slanted sunrays through pines
trembling with want

Nor nothing worse than
the young cardi’nals trilling
out to the white trees

Voices unfalt’ring
answered only by echoes
of forgotten spring

Cold, thick powder snow
blithely reminds us of the
small, white spring hen eggs

that, forever lost,
cracked among the ****-strewn straw,
oozing into earth—

and I think of you,
whispering back to the birds,
just as lost as they

waiting for pre-spring
dew to unfreeze from the grass
that you may lap it

with painful blue eyes
like black-stripped and impish jays,
looking down on all.