picture poem 1

Night brings ice. 

The morning finds the phone

dead

a black bone

of some dug up beast.

I keep the blinds tight

shut, the curtains snibbed

against the frigid light

outside my chilled digs.

I'm stuck.

The day already frozen. 

                                     but

I get set
and go

out to the park

and its glacial light
show. 

The grass is sugar dusted and 

leaves

fall

crackling like fire.

Water dreeps at their tips like a runny nose.

I walk on 

I see

backlit
by the low swung sun:

bright dying leaves

steaming waltzes into the air.

A thing in me moves,
caught in a right state:
thoughts slide
and melt
slide and melt
until

-tickled water
just at the boil-

comes the lift. That this

captured ice

can thaw
and give rise

right here in the dark days.

I take the image and,

rising,

follow the drift home.