One winter I lived north, alone
and effortless, dreaming myself
into the past. Perhaps, I thought,
words could replenish privacy.
Outside, a red bicycle froze
into form, made the world falser
in its white austerity. So much 
happens after harvest: the moon
performing novelty: slaughter, 
snow. One hour the same
as the next, I held my hands
or held the snow. I was like sculpture, 
forgetting or, perhaps, remembering
everything. Red wings in the snow,
red thoughts ablaze in the war
I was having with myself again.
Everything I hate about the world
I hate about myself, even now
writing as if this were a law
of nature. Say there were deer
fleet in the snow, walking out 
the cold, and more gingkoes
bare in the beggar's grove. Say
I was not the only one who saw
or heard the trees, their diffidence
greater than my noise. Perhaps
the future is a tiny flame
I'll nick from a candle. First, I'm burning. 
Then, numb. Why must every winter
grow colder, and more sure? 

____________________

Birds for leaves, and leaves for birds.
The tawny yellow mulberry leaves
are always goldfinches tumbling
across the lawn like extreme elation.
The last of the maroon crabapple
ovates are song sparrows that tremble
all at once. And today, just when I 
could not stand myself any longer,
a group of field sparrows, flew up into 
the bare branches of the hackberry 
and I almost collapsed: leaves
reattaching themselves to the tree
like a strong spell for reversal. What
else did I expect? What good
is accuracy amidst the perpetural
scattering that unspools the world.

____________________