Naming the Winter
As far as I can see
the wood's a harbor, the trees
all dark anonymities against the snow:
white oak and elm and sassafras and linden,
pin oak and hickory, sugar maple
and sweet gum, nameless masts
and spars above an ocean of white, wind
along the surface whipping up and curling
the snow back
in light spray
above all those forgotten
ships, sunken in the earth
Beneath its glazed surface the tangle
twigs and sticks and lives make
jumbles
to obscurity. Aspen.
Ash Red Maple. Rock oak.
Robert. Margaret. James. Louise.