Inversion of twilight
before-dawnness
a lightening of sky
giving shape and substance
to the guessed-at
in the dark

Snow
this morning
though

so the chestnut trees
curving across the hillside

usually opaque
in the park pre-dawn

now magically revealed
by still precipitous air

a first fall on silver
drawings of branches

A silence too
of sorts: a deadening
the tentative movement of cars
where a hiss of the tyre
is now compressed
to a thuck of the wheel

Two dark dogs paw-deep
slalom down the hillside
sending up the snow-spray
like puppies they are not